As much as 14 inches are expected.
The winter storm warning for Northampton and Accomack counties expires at 5 a.m. Monday.
Blizzard conditions have just been announced. Please use good judgement and good sense and stay where you are. The police and emergency people are having a rough time out in this weather. Don't jeopardise your life or theirs!
Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? -- Virginia O'Hanlon
115 W. Ninety-fifth Street
New York, N.Y.
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except (what) they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
-- Originally printed on Sept. 21, 1897
The (New York) Sun
PARKSLEY -- Becky Bloxom's family is planning a quiet Christmas this year.They already received one of the greatest gifts possible -- the chance to celebrate the holiday together -- after a Dec. 13 return to Virginia's Eastern Shore by their older daughter, Courtney, 19, who has been a patient at several hospitals after being seriously injured in a May 23 car accident.
After Bloxom's husband, William, gets home from his shift at Perdue Farms, the couple and their other two children will open gifts together at their Hallwood home on Christmas morning.
Then they will take Courtney's presents to Shore LifeCare at Parksley, where she is staying in a room filled with the typical trappings of a teenage girl's life -- her senior portrait and prom pictures, a menagerie of stuffed animals, music coming from a small CD player and a small glittering, rotating Christmas tree.
It is all crowded in a strange juxtaposition to the medical equipment more commonplace in a nursing home.
They might watch William's favorite Christmas movie, "A Christmas Story," and maybe have dinner later -- but the details don't matter.
"It's not important. Just being together, that's what's important," Bloxom said.
On the night of May 23, Becky Bloxom had spoken on the telephone with her daughter not long before she received a second call, this one from Courtney's boyfriend.
It was the phone call no parent wants to get, saying Courtney had been in a bad accident while driving home from her boyfriend's house.
The Arcadia High School senior, whose activities included cheerleading, chorus and an after-school job at St. Paul's on the Shore day care, had attended Arcadia's prom the week before and was preparing for her high school graduation.
The only visible signs of injury from the crash were a cut on her pinkie and a black eye, but she was seriously wounded internally.
But Courtney suffered a severe brain injury in the single-vehicle accident and has since been treated at four facilities: Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Retreat Doctors' Hospital in Richmond, Cumberland Children's Hospital in New Kent, Va., and most recently, Shore LifeCare.
She was in a coma for about six weeks and during that time missed a major milestone in her life: her June 9 graduation from Arcadia High, where her sister, Ashlin, 16, accepted Courtney's advanced studies diploma in an emotional ceremony.In the days since the accident, milestones are measured in very different ways, such as the ability to focus her eyes on an object or to make a sound.
"We were never told it would be short," Bloxom said of her daughter's progress. "The doctor's exact words were, 'It's going to take a long time.'At Shore LifeCare, Courtney receives three hours daily of speech, occupational and physical therapy in an effort to recover skills. The move to the facility, although welcomed because it is close to home, did not come easily for her mother.
"It was a little scary because no one ever wants to put their child in a nursing home," she said, adding that the staff there have been "wonderful; they love her."Bloxom went on, reflecting on another benefit of the move: "Traumatic brain injury is a long journey. I'm excited about bringing her home and letting the community be a part of it."
Bloxom took leave from her job with First Med to care for Courtney and has remained by her bedside six to eight hours a day in the seven months since the accident. Her husband has held down the fort at home, working at his job while trying to maintain a normal home life for Ashlin and the couple's 12-year-old son, Josh."We know she is seeing; we know she is hearing," said her mother.
The family is thankful for the hundreds of Shore residents who have helped since the accident."Our heartfelt thanks to the community for everything they've done," Bloxom said.
Courtney's classmates, friends and others have spearheaded many charity events -- including haircut-a-thons, car washes, a dance, a motorcycle poker run and the sale of bumper stickers and bracelets -- to help alleviate the financial strain that comes with long-term medical needs.Becky Bloxom's greatest fear is that as time goes by the community will move on, even while Courtney continues her slow struggle for recovery.
"Our family's fear is she'll be forgotten. So come by and visit her; tell her to keep fighting," Bloxom said to all who have shown their support to the family.And turning to Courtney, she says with a hug, "My dream of you walking across that stage -- I don't know what stage it is, but it's going to happen. You've got a lot to offer, a lot to share.
So many of us have watched and read about the daily sactifices this Mother and this family has made. Courtney's road to recovery has not been an easy one for her nor her family and friends. I wish all of you in the Bloxom family a very Merry Christmas. Courtney is proof that wonderful things do happen with prayer and with the attitude to never give up.
Keep up the good work Courtney. A Merry Christmas to you. jmmb
