Cold, Cold, Cold

Another decade, another polar vortex.

For the first time since Madonna, Prince and Bruce Springsteen ruled the pop charts, I was made privy to extremely cold temperatures. Wednesday, January 30^th greeted me with temps reading minus twenty-five (F), while Thursday morning—the 31st—revealed they had sunk even lower, to minus twenty-nine (F).

Ah, winter. The leaden air mass that sits upon us like a cruel older sibling evokes memories.

I share them here.

The eighties were cold. And no, that isn't a tacit reference to the Reagan administration.

For reasons known only to itself, the weather pattern shifted and brought Arctic cold to the upper Midwest on three separate occasions during the decade: 1982, 1983 and 1985. In a cosmological fusion of the real estate maxim location, location, location and the more-general one that states timing is everything, I was able to participate in all three.

Arctic cold is extremely efficient. It does in a few minutes what non-Arctic cold takes an hour to do. Sadistically, it freezes and then numbs one's flesh, providing a prickly burn as it does so. Accounts that include phrases like “a thousand tiny razors” are not far off.

Add wind and the process is exponentially accelerated. The sensations are deepened. Accountants steeped in cost-benefit analysis applaud wildly. It is very, very efficient.

My first immersion experience with Arctic air occurred on January 16, 1982. I had taken it upon myself to head into the city for some record shopping. Being young, I instinctively knew the emergency weather warnings being issued about dangerously cold temperatures did not apply to me.

They were for other people.

Dressed as I would for any other winter's day, I set off downtown. All was well until the trip home.

Waiting on the Fullerton El platform (so named because this particular conveyance is elevated above street level, thereby exposing patrons to the full effect of any and all wind), I became aware of a painful, incessant chill.

Surprisingly, the sneakers I wore did little to insulate my feet. My ears were on fire thanks to the ability polar breezes have for reducing human skin to pin cushions.

At least I hadn't inconvenienced myself by wearing a hat.

One of the more amusing qualities of Arctic cold is its ability to provoke profanity. As I stood on the El platform completely exposed to the minus forty-degree wind chill, I could do little but hop up and down and spit “Fuck!” from between my clenched teeth.

Yes, it was cold.

And thanks to a perversion of generosity, the fun wasn't over yet.

Since this was Saturday, the bus that would normally take me to within a block of my home was not in service. Which meant a one-mile walk into the same westerly winds I had combated on the El platform.

No alcoholic, no junkie and no crackhead ever went to the lengths to satiate their addiction than I did that day.

God smiles on us in many ways. On this day, he—or she—had decided to teach a young man about vulnerability. About exposed skin's sensitivity to polar temperatures. About hats.

While I had successfully avoided the social embarrassment that goes hand in hand with having the beautiful young women who frequented record stores on Saturday mornings from pointing and laughing at my hat hair, I had risked permanent (and painful) skin damage.

After arriving home, I inspected my ears for the small, white patches that indicate frostbite. Finding none, I dove into bed. I minimized pillow-to-ear contact for fear they would snap and break off.

There were other experiences, most notably December 24, 1983 (minus twenty-three with steady twenty MPH winds) and January 20, 1985, which bottomed out at twenty-seven below with similar wind speeds.

But chastened by my El platform experience, I limited my exposure. If I wasn't attending a holiday party or periodically starting my car, I was inside. The way God intended. So instructive was the Arctic cold that I only needed to suffer it once. 

Regrettably, Jack Daniels, Stolichnaya and Heineken couldn't say the same.

Chillin'

It's winter—again. Like the time that passes between unwelcome chores, winter inspires thoughts along the lines of “Didn't we just do winter last year?”

Not that I should complain. Since the epic winter 2013/14, the last three have been fairly mild. A year ago saw February temps reach into the sixties. But about November first the awareness of this becomes a breeding ground for a peculiar kind of Old Testament guilt.

We haven't been made to suffer sufficiently, oh Lord. We beseech thee to bestow upon us the punishment we so richly deserve. As the ungrateful recipients of mild winters we neither deserve or even enjoy, we beseech thee oh Lord for your most unmerciful meteorological displays, that we might be made whole again in your eyes.

Echoing the neutral-to-nuclear social dynamic that currently infests our republic, daytime highs have either been forty degrees Fahrenheit or twelve. 

True, there was a munificent stretch of stress-free weather prior to Christmas that allowed shoppers to empty their wallets without the unpleasantness of wind chills, wintry mixes or winter storm advisories marring the festivities.

But this was followed by a two-week spell (which neatly coincided with student's Christmas break) that saw temperatures remain below twenty. And they were often far-lower. It was the longest such period in Chicago's history.

Snowfall has followed a similar pattern. It was mostly a rumor until we flipped our calendars to February. After what was being termed a snow drought, we have seen snow on three successive weekends.

This past week, it snowed every day, with massive snowfalls predicted for the weekend. This was reinforced at every turn by a panicked media, even as there were no new developments to report. We obediently rushed out and filled supermarket check-out lanes with carts stuffed with food enough to last until spring.

In the end, was there significant snow? Yes. Was it snowpacalypse? No. 

And I am ungrateful because a howling blizzard would have allowed me what I enjoy most about the season: watching people drive. Yes, the first snow of the season unfailingly reminds me of a NatGeo or Animal Planet special, because watching drivers contend with it is like watching baby animals take their first steps.

There is the halting creep to a stop sign or traffic signal. Brake lights flicker as a driver tests their footing. Then there is the tenuous negotiation of a turn. And ideally, the skillful application of acceleration afterwards.

Slow ensures the insurance agent will remain a stranger.

Of course, it doesn't always go this way. Drivers of SUVs and pick-up trucks, armed with an inflated sense of indomitableness, feel compelled to display their vehicular-enabled superiority by passing the rest of us with barely disguised contempt.

Your patience will be rewarded when, several miles down the road, they are seen frantically dialing their phones in search of a tow truck with a winch. Even with high ground clearance and four-wheel drive, ditches, culverts and gullies don't release their captives willingly.

Amusement aside, winter is expensive. And time-consuming. Yes, winter is a lot of work.

It requires insulated coats. Gloves. Scarves. Heavy boots. Hats. Anti-freeze. Windshield washer solvent. Scrapers. Snow brushes. Snow tires. Snow shovels. Snowblowers. Salt. Heat. Not to mention the storage space required for these when it's not winter.

We have to warm up our cars. For those of us without garages, we have to clear off our cars. Scrape windows. Walk more carefully. Drive more slowly. Put more clothes on. Take more clothes off. Leave earlier for work. And arrive home later.

We have to wash our cars more often. And clean road salt off our coats when we don't. Wash floors. And sweep unidentifiable muck from our garage floors. Can the folk who calculate what texting costs American business in lost productivity please tell us what winter costs?

But then there is a sunset painted in pewter, yellow and blue. And the pink sunrises and sunsets that occasionally follow a winter storm. The graceful curve of wind blown snow and the way it can trace the branches of a tree.

There is the distinctive crunch of it underfoot and the clarity of a chilled, star-filled sky at night. A cup of hot chocolate. The smell of cold air. And a renewed appreciation for the comforts of a warm bed.

It could be worse.

A Bronze Medal at the Winter Olympics

Winter supposedly ends in a few minutes. I'm here to write its obituary.

It was the third-snowiest in Chicago history. And it doesn’t matter if you use the traditional measure (the duration of the winter solstice) or the meteorological one (the period between December first and the last day of February), it snowed a lot.

This near-record snowfall was accomplished without the benefit of a single blizzard. It was through a grinding, unrelenting, inch-by-inch accumulation that its bronze medal was won. Not only did it snow a lot, but it snowed on many days.

So many, many days.

And we at the Square Peg were made corpulent with delight.

And we shouldn't forget the cold. The winter just concluded was likewise the third-coldest in our history. It stands an Olympic-like three-tenths of a degree from the record low average of 18.3 degrees Fahrenheit posted in 1903/04. It is sobering to realize that for giant stretches of time, it was warmer in the freezer.

I am grateful I did not die while shoveling snow. This because owing to the bronze medal cold, much of the bronze medal snowfall was dry. To those luxuriating in blissful ignorance of such things, a heaping shovelful of dry snow weighs much, much less than does a heaping shovelful of wet snow.

So there’s that.

But I can’t summon similar gratitude over the 2,628 times I had to scrape ice off the windows of my car. Or sweep snow from it or remove the cement-like accumulation from the wheel wells and front and rear undercarriage. Nor am I dancing a jig over the 104 additional gallons of gas I burned at $3.79 per warming it up.

The layers and layers of clothing I was forced to don every time I went outdoors and then had to remove when I returned indoors also left me distinctly unenthused. Ditto the considerable irritation I experienced while buckling my shoulder harness and seat belt in an already narrow space made narrower by bulky winter clothing.

And what of the snow and howling wind that inevitably found the exposed flesh between the end of a jacket's sleeve and the top of a glove? Or that bit between a scarf and the northern terminus of a coat’s zipper? At wind chills below ten degrees, it may as well have been a knife at your jugular.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t shine a light (preferably an LED with fresh batteries) on the bane of all calcium-deficient human beings: falling.

I myself fell several times this winter. Fortunately, nothing broke. As shippers the world over have learned, it is difficult to break something wrapped like a Ming vase about to be offloaded by longshoremen.

(Which isn't to infer that I in any way, shape or form resemble a Ming vase. Actually, I look more like a Jin Dynasty ewer.)

But as scientists point out, we do adapt. There is such a thing as acclimatization. While the thought of a post-work stroll through an open parking lot in nineteen degree weather would have been horrific in September, last week it seemed (all things being relative) balmy.

Yes, it’s true. I sauntered to my car in an unzipped coat. Carrying my gloves instead of wearing them. At the risk of diminishing my robust display of acclimatization, I should add there was no wind chill.

Combined with the two occasions this month that have seen the thermometer register a positively tropical fifty degrees and there is tangible proof that even permafrost can be rendered impermanent.

But the ice scraper isn’t going anywhere. Snow is predicted later in the week.

My obituary is premature.