David Heiller
I heard a man making a commentary on the radio on Saturday morning. He
had been to a writers’ convention in Florida, and a lady had asked him why he chose to stay in
Minnesota.
He proceeded to list a lot of things about the state, mostly negative,
mostly centered around the weather.
I empathized with him for a few minutes. After all, we had just withstood
the coldest day and the longest cold spell in the history of the state. Poor us. Poor, stupid us.
But then I thought, like Loren Brabec, “Wait just a minute.” It wasn’t so
bad.
Our family spent a lot of time inside, but it was good time. We played
Rumikubs and cribbage and Yahtze. We played music and sang songs. We read
garden catalogues and books, and watched a few movies.
All with a clear conscience. It was too cold to do anything outside, so
why not enjoy it inside? I cleaned the junk drawer and sewed some missing
buttons on a pair of pants and two shirts and Cindy’s jacket. We relaxed, and
made sure the wood box stayed full and the pipes weren’t freezing.
It’s easy to feel sorry for
yourself in weather like that. But think about Sarajevo, where they have endured winters like ours for a couple
years, and don’t even have any trees to cut down for firewood anymore.
When you think of places like that, it’s
hard to feel sorry for yourself.
 |
| A cold, lovely winter's walk. |
On Saturday, when
the temperature rose to a balmy 14
below zero, my daughter and I each strapped on a pair of snowshoes and walked to the woods. It was beautiful, just like a
postcard, with deep snow everywhere.
We saw tracks of mice and squirrels and maybe a weasel, but no deer
tracks. Our dogs went with us, MacKenzie plunging ahead, up to her head in snow, and Ida content to
follow behind. We passed by pine trees, and I thought of that Jack London
story, “Το Build a Fire.” It was Jack London weather
on Saturday. Once in a while a tree would pop like a rifle shot.
One time the dog stepped on my snowshoe and I fell down face first. The
snow was so deep that I couldn’t touch the ground with my hands. It was an
eerie feeling, like being in water over your head, and for a split second I panicked. But
then I leaned back and got my feet under me and stood up. Mollie enjoyed
watching that, since she had fallen several
times herself.
It was a good time being with my daughter. She enjoyed it as much as me,
and we both enjoyed it more because we had a new appreciation for being outside
without fear of freezing to death. We needed to get out.
On Sunday, the thermometer skyrocketed to zero, and 168
skiers went to Banning State Park to enjoy the sunshine and raise money for the
Pine County Cancer Ski-A-Thon.
Poor, stupid us? I don’t think so.
The
cold weather had its funny moments too. Cindy Jensen came into work on Friday noon, February
2, I asked her how cold she had had it.
“38 below,” she answered.
“You must be in a warm spot,” I said in all earnestness. Most people
had temperatures in the 40 to 50 below range. Ten minutes later I realized how
dumb that must have sounded. 38 below zero is a warm spot? Since when? Cindy
and I both laughed about it.
I laughed too at John Filtz. He had minus 56 degrees that Friday
morning: I asked him if he and Gladys were getting along all right. He
answered: “As long as I
stay by the stove and she throws the wood in.” His sense of as dry as his
firewood.
And I know this is a cliché, and, that lady
from Florida wouldn’t understand this, but there is a common bond that is
formed in surviving the kind of
weather we had last week. My for others, and my self-respect, goes up after
such times.
Speaking of Florida: yes, the weather there
may be perfect, but
don’t forget they have their share of problems. For one thing, everyone and his uncle want
to live there and do live there. And don’t houses sink into the shallow
aquifer of Florida? And aren’t those aquifers going dry? And wasn’t there
a hurricane or two there last year? And what about drive by shootings and illegal aliens and drug wars and Miami Vice?
I guess every location has its Achilles heel. Ours just happens to have a little frostbite
on it.
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