Sweating it out on a March walk ~ March 12, 1987

David Heiller

As we headed outside for a walk on Saturday afternoon, I glanced at the indoor-outdoor thermometer. I looked again, more closely.

Nah, it couldn’t be. I started to say something but stopped. My eyes were playing tricks on me. Seventy-two degrees?

As I sat outside putting on my boots, Cindy and the kids came rushing past. “It’s 72 degrees!” Cindy said.

Oh Spring!

“It can’t be 72 degrees,” I said, even though I had just looked at the thermometer myself. “Are you sure it wasn’t 62 degrees?”

“No, it’s 72 degrees,” she repeated.

We started on our second walk of the day. This time we had a menagerie, Steve Bonkoski and his four children, plus Cindy and me with our two. As we straggled out onto the gravel road heading south, Cindy pointed down the road. A 30 foot stretch of road was covered with flowing water. On our first walk that morning, the road had been bare.

Seventy twο degree March days will do that to Pine County roads.

Not many minutes passed before we realized just what a 72-degree March day means to Minnesotans. I was wearing a tee shirt and long sleeved work shirt, while Cindy had on a heavy sweater, and Steve wore a wool shirt plus a seven month old sleeping boy on his back. We wore lined boots on our feet. The children all had their winter coats on, too.

To make matters worse, I had offered to pull the wagon, So twο of the kids took me upon that. Try pulling a wagon of kids on muddy roads wearing lined boots and a heavy shirt in 72-degree heat.

Olympic Triathlon winners don’t train that hard.

Still we trudged on, saying nothing to each other.

It’s sacrilegious to complain about such weather in March. Yοu do that, and an Armistice Day blizzard is likely to sweep you off your feet in a hurry.

The kids didn’t seem to mind nearly so much. They had spied the water on the road, and their pace picked up accordingly. They splashed through the deepest part. Even Malika, the youngest walker at 20 months, dismounted from the wagon to wade through the water, which nearly poured over the top of her boots.

We passed the lake, keeping a steady pace, except for Steve’s son, Brooks, who was enjoying the water more than anybody. We moved ahead, giving an occasional holler at the two-year-old. Finally Brooks hollered back. He was leaning crazily to one side, like a human Tower of Pisa. We gaped at him, and yelled for him tο come. He called back in a tiny voice, “Stuck.”

The mud on the shoulder of the road held him like a tar baby. He couldn’t move, only lean in our general direction.

Steve ran back and rescued his son, and the walk proceeded to the top of the hill a quarter mile away. Then we turned around and headed hack. By this time, half an hour into the walk, sweat poured off our faces. Even the kids knew we had goofed, dressing like Eskimos on a day like this. Finally Solee, who is nine and reads a lot of books, broached the subject. “This is crazy, why are we dressed like this?” she demanded.

I tried to find an adult answer. “Because it’s March, see, and we are used to March weather, so psychologically, we dressed for colder weather.” I thought if I used the word “psychologically,” she would be satisfied.

“What difference does it make if it’s March?” she persisted. “We wouldn’t be dressed like this if it was May.”

“Yes, but the weather can change in a hurry,” I answered, thinking of that Armistice Day blizzard again. Solee didn’t remember that November 11, 1940, storm when the temperature was 60 degrees in the morning and howling, snowy cold at two that afternoon. Of course, I didn’t remember it either.

“You’re crazy,” she said, with a steady look.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted.

When we got home, we took off our shirts and sweaters and boots and babies. We had overheated like stubborn Norwegian bachelor farmers, unwilling to take off their long-underwear before June first. But no one complained.

You don’t complain about 72-degree March days. You never know when that blizzard will come.