Working hard in the SeacoastNH.com World Headquarters Corporate Hideaway, we got a call to look out the window. Snow! The latest arrival of snowfall in history (that we can remember anyway). It was like Christmas, except that our credit cards are already maxed out. Braving the first precipitation of winter, we left our 1756 office and headed out for a sandwich in a skyless downtown Portsmouth.

Within minutes of the snowfall, NH citizens were already slipping on the pavement and banging up their cars as if it was November. Turning onto Congress Street, we noticed that Portsmouth's Finest were already out in force and plowing the half inch of accumulated snow in order to reduce the surplus of allocated tax dollars. A few years back during a deep icy snow, one of these little plow units tipped over against the giant plate glass window of our former office, just a few feet from here. The driver was trapped inside, tilted at a 45 degree angle, pressed against the glass and unable to get out. We had to shout to him through the window while waiting for the Public Works crew to come rescue the embarrassed guy, always fearing that the plow would come crashing through into our office. Now our office is off the beaten path and has no plate glass windows. Much better.

"Get in here!" shouts the ultra-famous Emilio, the one-man Italian neighborhood and last remaining solo restaurateur in town (if you don't count Frank at Savario's Pizza on State Street.) When business is slow on Daniel Street, Emilio simply solicits customers off the street. While hand-making Italian lunches Emilio regales his customers with jokes that are often older than this historic city itself. "Where did this white stuff come from?" he asks, "I didn't order any." Because he is out of pasta fagioli, we are forced to select an Italian tuna sandwich with potato kale soup. His slogan is "Every sandwich is an Emilio in itself." We've been laughing at that one for almost 30 years now.

Heading back to work, slipping and cold. Must be a whole inch of that stuff as the missing sun draws the color out of the historic Rockingham Hotel. It will be dark soon, frigid and windy. Just a few days back it was so warm that the New Year's ice sculpture melted. Brrr.. three more months to go. Maybe there is an up-side to this Global Warming thing.

Check today's weather with Ken Mitchell

See first snowfall in 1998

Photos and text by J. Dennis Robinson
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