Parking spaces were reappearing all over Norwalk on Friday as warm temperatures melted the snow. In some cases, the sun was getting some help. On North Avenue, Lefty Petridis used an icebreaker and a snow shovel to clean out the snow from the parking lot of Classic Upholstery, his business.
"You've got to knock it down while it's still nice and soft," Petridis said, adding that he had heard it would be 40 degrees Saturday. (The National Weather Service says it will be mostly sunny Saturday, with a high near 38 degrees. But expect a northwest wind of 24 to 28 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 49 mph.)
Petridis said he is nine years older than his cousin, president of Norwalk Firefighters Union Local 830 who also goes by the name Lefty Petridis. The Classic Upholstery's building has a colorful history: It was built in 1958 as a dance studio, then it was a restaurant and eventually it became a strip joint.
Petridis has an interesting history as well. He came to Norwalk from Greece in 1966, when he was 7 years old. His family crossed the Atlantic on the SS Queen Anna Maria, and he was the only member who didn't get sick on the 12-day trip. Their name was scratched on the cabin wall another family member had made the trip three years earlier and had the same room.
He's not confident winter is over. "I hope we've seen the last of it," he said, but "March brings crazy things once in a while."
Did you enjoy the warm weather on Friday?
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