Umbrellas in the Snow

I noticed it again this morning. People here use umbrellas during snow storms like most other folks use them in the rain. I saw one person, then another and many others last week as I was walking to the Metro. "That's different," I thought. Then there were even more umbrellas going into the Metro station. Then I saw more from the train. And now, just a bit ago, Kooper and I saw another person holding up an umbrella to ward off the softly falling - but apparently dangerous - snowflakes.



I had never seen that in all of my years until last week. So I asked someone about it. "Oh, yes," the man at the bus stop said, "That's what we do here." Like it's nothing unusual.

"But why?" I asked.

"I think it's because we walk more."

"Huh?" I said. I admit the look on my face might have been more like "Are you crazy!?!?"

"We're out in the stuff more" (although he used another word for "stuff." A word I've never associated with white, frozen water crystals). "People other places go from their house to their car to their workplace. We walk a lot more from the bus to work. From the home to the Metro. We walk for blocks and blocks. Not most people though."

Okay, so I see some logic there I guess. More walking means more time out in the snow and a greater need for protection from the big, evil snowflakes. And maybe Washingtonians are a bit too civilized and governmental to use the common winter parka and hood combination.

Maybe umbrellas are more in vogue. Fashionable. Style seems to carry a lot of weight in this town. Appearance counts. Celebrity and notoriety mean a lot. Which, it turns out, is good news for the umbrella makers.