Pure Exhilarating Cold

Posted on 06/01/2014 by Grumpa Joe

There is nothing finer or more exhilarating than a Mid-Western cold spell.  It has been a long time since we experienced temperatures like the ones we have today. Last night when I took the trash out, my indoor-outdoor thermometer read -3 F. This morning, the darn thing didn’t register. I bundled up to blow the snow off the drive and walkways. Just before leaving the house, I checked the temperature on my phone. It read minus seventeen fahrenheit, with a south wind. I believe the cold is coming to us from the South Pole where it is summer and research ships traveling there to prove man-made global warming have frozen into the water.

Outside, the cold manifested itself in quiet. Normally, I can hear the noise of traffic from the nearby roads, but not today. The day before the birds crowded the feeders in a feeding frenzy. Today there is no movement, no sound, nothing except cold,  sparkling pure crystals of powder snow. The sky is a pure blue and any pollution over the city has frozen and fallen from the sky.

My mind took me back to a time when I served as Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 1776. I formed the troop two years before the USA ‘s two hundredth birthday. People called us the bi-centennial troop. Many of the scouts still communicate with me. One of the memories was a District event held in January called the Klondike Derby at Yorkville Scout camp west of Chicago. A weekend campout filled with sled races, pioneering skills and cold weather survival training. We braved the cold and survived a night sleeping on the ground in tents when the temperature dropped to twenty-five below zero. The best part was Sunday morning when it was time to break camp and head for home. Not a single car started, we were stranded. Thankfully, the Camp Ranger had a phone in his cabin and we were able to call home for Dads to come out and pick up their sons as the Scoutmasters tried starting the vehicles. We survived that adventure also, and finally arrived home by six. It was another time when I enjoyed the pure exhilaration of the extreme cold.

It took me thirty minutes to move the snow, and by that time my gloved hands were tingling but my fingers were beginning to numb at the same time. I filled the feeders and came in to hibernate. I think it is a good time to cook some chili.

Minus 17 Minus 17-a minus 17-b Minus 17-c

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Gray-haired Man Freezes His Keester Off

Posted on 10/12/2011 by Grumpa Joe

It was a plan conceived to save an old man’s body from the suffering in low temperatures. It failed. Yesterday, I spent the morning hours begging for money to feed those in need. The plan called for a milder time today. deliberately, I signed up for  afternoon hours thinking the temperature would be milder. It wasn’t. Granted the temps were up from those in the morning, but they were lower this afternoon than they were yesterday in the morning. The result is that this gray-haired old man froze his keester off while begging.

The citizens of Frankfort were most appreciative and contributed generously. My fellow Lion, Tony, who has cerebral palsy and who has been a Lion for over thirty years, showed me up big time. He sat in his wheelchair bundled in his heaviest winter clothes and wrapped in blankets while begging. His bucket is always twice as heavy as any one else’s.

The manager from Jewel came out and told me to come in and to warm up, to have a complimentary cup of coffee, and to not bear the cold. I bravely told her it was better to freeze and look pathetic, people will give more willingly. Is that dumb or what?

My mind wandered as the cold penetrated my layers. This time it only took a few minutes to reach my joints, where yesterday it took an hour before I reached a point where my shoulders ached.

What a wimp I have become, I thought, remembering times past. Why just thirty-something years ago I went on a weekend campout with the Boy Scouts in below zero weather. Here I am standing within a few feet of a building in twenty-six degrees complaining about how cold I am. What a wimp those years have made me. Then, I looked across the front of Jewel to the second entrance and saw Tony patiently sitting in his wheel chair without a whimper. Yes, I am a wimp.

I remembered when I led my Boy Scout Troop 1776 to the Klondike Derby campout in Yorkville in January. The daytime temp was never above zero degrees, and the night-time temp dipped towards minus twenty. Amazingly, not a single scout or leader got frost bite or hypothermia. The crème de la crème came in the morning when the event ended and we all rushed to break camp and get the hell out of there. Not a single car started, and the leaders were all stuck starting frozen cars until four-thirty in the afternoon. That was not in the plan. We were smart enough to call home and have parents come to rescue their boys, but we were all stuck until the last car started and we all got out safely.

Yes! Thirty-plus years have turned me into a wimp. Where the hell is all this Global Warming stuff when you need it?

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