January 26

The Sunday night rain became overnight snow, Monday morning was largely a repeat of Saturday. There were reports of a major storm off the coast that was expected to hit hard through New York and New England but our area was expected to miss the brunt of it. I had my usual morning lunch at the mall, in the afternoon another round of flurries blew through the area. The McCaskey girls had a home game in the evening, a makeup game from the 22nd against Warwick. This game had been postponed under unusual circumstances, on the 22nd the JV game was in the second half when it was halted and the gym was evacuated because of a gas leak in the school's heating system (when we returned from Lititz that night the building was closed, we had received word in advance on what had happened). On this night the varsity game was the only order of business, with the prevailing weather conditions it was scheduled to start at 6:00. The snow was falling when I left the house at 5:00, had I been traveling any further I might have considered staying in but opportunities to see our girls play are rare. Between the weather and the early start the crowd was very sparse, at game time the scoreboard clock operator had not yet arrived. Head coach Brian McCloud's brother Gary keeps the scorebook for the girls' games, since I was present he asked me if I would handle the book for him if he ran the clock. At halftime I was talking to Jon Mitchell, he said it was a good thing I had been there. The game was an important one for JPM, they were trailing by nine entering the last quarter but rallied to win 53-49. The snow flurries were over by the time the game ended but it was COLD, I had to scrape some ice off the windshield before I could drive. The boys play at home on Tuesday and Friday. Take care, thanks for reading.