AH, YES, THIS IS WINTER the way I remember it, back when men were men and sheep were nervous. We used to have winters like this all the time and even before that. Two weeks after Groundhog Day we're reliving a winter from back in the day; a cold, cruel, basic winter from a time when when "wind chill" was the name of a syndicated newspaper columnist instead of a way to make the temperature outdoors sound colder that it really is.

Yeah, this is winter the way I remember hating it, when ice and slush become obnoxious house guests who won't leave, no matter how much you curse them, threaten them, or call the cops to have them hauled away. We're not quite at the sustained frigid level of the Winter of '77, when you could walk to Camden without using a bridge, when you could skate from Manayunk to Boat House Row on the Schuylkill.

I didn't remember just how butt ugly a real Philadelphia winter can be until I saw this car parked on 63rd Street in West Philadelphia this morning. This is what city cars used to look like for the better part of January and February, when car washes were luxuries and once white snow turned into hideous brown splatters that froze on contact.

Yes, my friends, this is winter before the thaw. Over the river and through the hood, caked salt and frozen slush. Resistence is futile. There is no escape. There is only survival. And the promise of spring.

Eventually.