Surprise, a post about the weather

14. January 2009 by Joe Gergen.

I was at the coop the other day, actually yesterday, and I heard one clerk telling another clerk that he needed to read the Little House on the Prairie books. Why, he asks. She said because it will make you see what it was like to go through a really tough winter. I think she was right.

Perhaps we have lost perspective. I think back to my parent’s generation. Not that long ago. I remember the countless stories of how cold and nasty winter was.  About having to wake up in the morning and break the ice on the water in the wash basin so you could clean up, and this was inside. The snow drifts that went to the top of the electrical poles. The poor persons who died in the blizzard because the conditions were so bad they could see no more than a few feet, only to be discovered the next day 20 feet from their farm house.

And now when it is -20 degrees, we complain because our car barely started, because there is a draft in our 68 degreehouse, because our hands go momentarily cold while shoveling snow. Boy that’s rough.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am totally aware that if you were to get caught out in this kind of cold weather it could easily kill you.

But we also quickly forget that when when the winter came around in the north, past generations did a lot of holing up. Getting out and about in the winter, especially in rural areas, was a big deal. They essentially hibernated.

Of course now days if we can’t get out for a few days we all get cabin fever horribly bad. God forbid when it is 20 below that we stop carting our kids around to extracurricular activities 5 days a week or expecting that I can do all the same things I would do on a nice spring day. God forbid we would take advantage of the freezing weather to just slow down for a moment.

So put some long underwear on, a big sweater too, get underneath a woolly blanket and curl up on the couch with a book.  Come on, I know you can do it. I know people who still do.

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