Click the button below to register for the March 11 “Meet the Editor” event, where Kidwell will be on hand to answer all your questions about the Independent, our coverage and his “curse of the Windy City.”
I felt compelled as a very recent transplant from Chicago to apologize to everyone here for bringing my hometown weather with me. Please know it wasn’t intentional. I am planning on writing the Chicago Chamber of Commerce to suggest the nation’s third largest city no longer has anything on Plymouth warranting its “Windy City” moniker. What a crock.
By way of consolation, it might please some of you to know I spent three days, much like the rest of you, huddled over a wood-burning stove on Long Pond, making sure the blaze was enough to heat the immediate five feet between me and my only heat source. No phone, no interweb, no heat, no running water. I won’t subject you here to the complications of filling a toilet tank using only snow. But perhaps most frustrating, I had no ability to perform the tasks of my new job. Of course, I won’t mention here how during my interview process I was promised, in fact guaranteed, milder winters. I am sure it is a matter to be addressed by the Human Resources Department.
All this only furthers suspicion I am somehow to blame. One of my dear new colleagues, to remain here unnamed, even suggested posting my phone number and address for all weather-related complaints and free snow shoveling services.
Quite a welcome to New England.
I will remember to stock up on instant coffee, which would have been welcome with my snowmelt water supply heated atop the wood-burning stove. And no, I did not have to hunt game with my bare hands, but I am telling my family I did – so let’s keep this between us please. My survivalist blog to follow.
I was able to entertain myself by reading by flashlight the book Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, a book I picked up at the suggestion of one of my colleagues. It led me to wonder how long the pilgrims were without power in their first nasty winter ashore in 1622, a question Philbrick failed to answer in 358 pages. More proof how everyone needs a good editor.
I most recently lived in a condo near Wrigley Field in Chicago, where the snow miraculously just disappeared on its own from the sidewalks outside my building. I mention this only to suggest my snow-shoveling muscles were atrophied in my advancing years. They are now reawakened with vengeance.
When my family saw the shoveling video above, I was immediately informed: “This is how old men die.” I am not making this up – it’s a direct quote. I decided to take it as a blunt but worried endearment. But as I read it, I looked around and realized there would be no rescue here under so much snow.
Then I imagined many of you in the same situation, all the helpless folks suffering medical emergencies – perhaps some not even yet discovered. I thought of all the plow and utility crews, the first responders all working around the clock during this 100-year event. I would often hear sirens late at night in the distance and wonder about the stories behind them.
We at the Independent will be covering the fallout from this storm for quite some time to find the answers to those stories, to ask all the tough questions of town officials, and to figure out how this curse followed me from Chicago. I promise to do all I can to make up for it.
Most journalists are no strangers to moving to new places throughout their careers, to begin new adventures, face new challenges, stay one step ahead of the layoffs. But any journalist can tell you the most significant way to connect with a new town is to go through something like this – either horrific or elating – with the people who have lived there all their lives.
I learned this in 1992 as Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida, again in 2016 as the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in more than a century, and now in Plymouth with this record-setting storm of 2026. Despite the small challenges, I would have it no other way.
My gratitude for this opportunity is too much to encompass here, from all the people who have welcomed me into their homes, to the Independent staff who warmly puts up with my rookie mistakes, to my 80-year-old neighbor who strapped on snow shoes and ski poles to trudge through the woods and massive drifts just to check on my well-being.
Perhaps most deserving of my thanks is the family of Ed and Charlotte Russell, an Independent board member who – along with their daughters – graciously invited me to stay in their lakefront cottage until I get settled in town. I will never forget my stay here, not only for the survivalist adventure this week, but for the bald eagle outside, the visits from the friendly neighborhood flying squirrel, the nights filled with stars, and the incredible sunsets on Long Pond.
Thank you all for making me feel more a part of Plymouth every day.
David Kidwell can be reached at david@plymouthindependent.org.