Stormy weather

AUBURN, Maine - Doom is upon us.

That's what our weathermen have been prophesying since the weekend. This could be the big one — the one to dwarf all other snowstorms this season and perhaps end civilization as we know it in New England.

Time to head to the grocery store and buy food!

Armageddon is on our doorstep and the slayer of this frozen tundra is dressed in white. We now look to the skies and cower in our warm homes as another Nor'easter bears down on Maine.

Farewell world!

OK, enough with all this melodrama over Old Man Winter's assault on Merry Ole New England.

It is going to snow. That's what happens here in the Pine Tree State. It is supposed to snow, and zero temperatures are par for the course in the hinterlands. Can't take it? If you don't mind the bugs, alligators and humidity, head to Florida to avoid winter's onslaught.

According to weather prognosticators, most of this state will receive anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of the white stuff. Ski country will celebrate and roll out the welcome wagon when the skies open up and blanket the slopes with white gold. Our neighbors to our south, particularly winter-weary Boston, do not appreciate Old Man Winter's generosity with snow.

No sir!

Bostonians have been exasperated from these weekly storms that have made their narrow streets nearly impassable as the murder rate of car batteries skyrocket from arctic fronts that come and go like the tides at Revere Beach.

But this is Maine where snowmobilers, skiers, snowshoers and ice fishermen embrace snowstorms like an old friend from high school. Mainers expect snowstorms to unload on them and simply dress warmer when a cold front slips down from Canada. It is a compromise that all reluctant Mainers understand when a beautiful fall gives way to an ugly winter.

Anyway, it is going to snow hard on Wednesday and children will rejoice when school has been cancelled thanks Old Man Winter's icy hands. Confidence is high that school will be a no-go on Wednesday.

Mainers will do what they usually do when a snowstorm approaches. They will have a snow shovel handy, their snowblowers ready to go and meet another Nor'easter head on with the tenacity of  Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine when they faced the Rebels at Little Round Top at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.