Snow’s your old man — winter!
It’s finally happened. After all these years we’ve got a winter, and a dilly at that. Those who speak of “global warming” or as it is called nowadays “climate change” are on the back burner of cocktail party talk, while we deal with what some have called “a winter like those of yore.” It’s cold. Quite cold indeed. It should be cold because it’s winter, after all.
My first few winters on Shelter Island were punctuated by a phenomenon known as the “January thaw,” which would by implication mean that everything was frozen up to that point, sort of like now. For maybe two weeks the temperature would rise just enough to turn the first foot of dirt driveways into a sucking mire that could entrap a truck like a mastodon at the La Brea tar pits. Then, just as quickly, the cold would return, creating impenetrable barriers to all kinds of locomotion.
As I passed over the Peconic River on Route 105 just this past Monday I noticed that the “near shore” areas had assumed quite a mantle of ice, a harbinger of the Clark family’s dire forecast just before Christmas, indicating more trouble with ice than in recent winters past. Old timers will say, “Heck, we used to have snow so deep when we were kids that it was over our heads.” Of course, when they were kids they were only 2 feet tall, but never mind.
The record temperature for New York State was recorded in 1979 in Old Forge, at 52 degrees below zero. The record for the U.S. was set eight years before that in Anchorage Alaska, at -79.8 (rounded to -80) degrees. The coldest spot on earth was measured in July of 1983 at Russia’s Vostok Station in Antarctica, a harrowing -89.2 degrees Fahrenheit. So when we wake up and see the birds pecking at a frozen bird bath at maybe 10 degrees above, we “ain’t seen nothin’.”
I went to college in upstate New York, way upstate, where the temperature regularly plunged to 30 or 40 below. There were only two seasons: winter and August. Walking to class was an adventure. Immediately upon inhaling the first frigid breath, the inside of the nose would freeze and would take a good half-hour to thaw after entering a reasonably warm building. Ice used to form on the inside of our dormitory windows.
Students who had extra time on their hands and who had consumed more than the required amount of alcohol would have fun by running across the room, diving head first out of second- story windows into huge snowdrifts. The only cars that would start in the morning were the ones whose owners had had the foresight to bring the battery in for the night and plug in the electric dipstick. A couple of buddies of mine were army reservists, and threatened with immediate shipment to Viet Nam if they missed a meeting, would literally keep their car running all night to ensure attendance.
Locally, some people with mental faculties just short of over-imbibed college students participate in “polar bear plunges” where they dive into the frigid local waters, usually on New Year’s Day. The water temperature in Peconic Bay last week was 38. Whether or not these folks are just a few ice cubes short of a tray is not even debatable.
This is not the limit of crazy things that people do during the winter. Now I enjoy sailing, but I try to limit my sailing activity to when the water is not hard. I once had the occasion to go out with an ice-boater on Noyack Bay. Take it from someone who has gone down Mt. Van Hoevenburg’s bobsled run in mid-February in Lake Placid, this was the coldest experience of my life. Upon returning home I needed to sit with my face in front of a hair-dryer for 20 minutes before I could even close my lips around a cup of coffee.
Perpetual snow and ice raises challenges for dogs who like to “do their business” in a pile of leaves or at least a patch of frozen dirt. Our temporary bulldog was near beside himself after two days of 2-foot drifts. I had the good fortune last week to gaze upon a full wood shed. Unfortunately, 25 percent of it has already gone up the chimney, with a sizable portion of the heat being soaked up by the aforementioned bulldog.
One more happy side benefit to the continued cold is that the profane “lyrics” of some contemporary “songs,” which in warmer weather blast through the open windows of low-riding cars at red lights, stop signs and gas stations, are mercifully contained within the vehicle. It also occurs to me that at this time of year highway departments could hire these cars, using the earthquake-like sub-woofing bass to break up road ice and permafrost.
People say that the trick to feeling cooler during the summer heat is to think of wintry things, like snow, skiing and ice skating. So to help stay warm, all you have to do is dream about beaches, sailing and swimming. Without darkness we cannot appreciate light, and without winter we cannot appreciate summer. I love summer … and winter, too.
