When I Was Cold, Part Two

Hmm. Now that it's time (past time) to write this entry, I'm not sure I have any stories about being cold that I haven't previously told online. In past entries I've written about:

Figure 1: The abandoned railroad bridge in Manlius, 1971. Newly re-edited.

• Walking home along the abandoned railroad tracks from my guitar teacher's house, and how cool water felt hot on my half-frozen fingers afterward (Figure 1)
  
• The Blizzard of '66, when we were off from school for a week, built an igloo, or a least a tunnel, and had plowed snowbanks five feet high
  
• Waiting in another blizzard in the early 1970s while my brother finished his biology lab
• Cracking a rib after sliding uncontrollably down an icy path at Syracuse University, and crawling across a steep and icy sidewalk outside my dorm to get to the street

Figure 2: Half-frozen Niagara Falls, February 1986. I think the
temperature that day was below 0 F. Yes, it was also windy.

• Driving around in early 1986 looking for someplace where it wasn't winter, and ending up in Montreal and Niagara Falls, where it was really winter (Figure 2)

Figure 3: a spit of land above the falls. Newly re-edited.

Figure 4: probably not the patch of river I stood on

• Standing on a frozen patch of the Niagara river, just above the falls (Figures 3 and 4)
  
• Getting ice in my freshly-washed hair as I walked to my boyfriend's house
• Our first and only white Christmas in Tucson

Figure 5: the firecracker hummingbird bush on January 22, 2007.

Figure 6: the drive to work on 1/22/07

Figure 7: by lunchtime on the 22nd, most of the snow was gone

• Our rare Tucson snowfall in January, 2007 (Figures 5-7), and discussing same with a security guard outside Unnamed Largish Company at 1 AM
  

Figure 8: a icy grotto is really an observation window at Niagara Falls

Well, then, what's left?

• I'm not sure I haven't told this before, but I didn't find it in a quick search, so here goes. There's the time I stood in front of University College, where my dad was the dean, waiting for a bus home to Manlius. Dad would have picked me up had I been able to call and reach him, but I was afraid that if I left the bus stop the bus would come, and I wouldn't be able to catch dad on the phone. So I stood there for an hour as late afternoon turned into evening, watching the time and temp on the MONY Plaza tower: 11 degrees, 12 degrees, 11 degrees, 10 degrees, 9 degrees...! Turned out a least one of the buses had broken down.
  
• John and I used to go to record shows (where we sold records and posters and buttons) in a 1962 Ford Falcon van. This was circa 1982, and the van was anything but airtight, and the heaters didn't work any more. One memorable trip was when we drove to Monroeville, PA in February, freezing all the way. Before we started back we went to Monroeville Mall (huge place, with a skating rink!) for some "moon boots"and down jackets. John found his moon boots, but I had to settle for something less stylish.
• (Posted this to John Scalzi's By the Way as a comment, which doesn't count as my having told the story:) Once when I was in about fourth or fifth grade, we have a snow day for blizzardy weather at 23 degrees below zero. My memory says that was before wind chill, but I don't trust 9-year-old Karen to have that detail right. The next day it was still windy and still cold, but not as extreme. It couldn't have been more than 0 degrees. We not only had school; we had an "outside noon hour," in which all those little girls in dresses and tights (and little boys a bit warmer in pants) had to go outside and shiver for half an hour. The gym teachers put many of the kids in a kickball game to warm them up, which is the least sadistic thing I remember Miss R. ever doing. The day after that we had no school, but I had already prepared some hand-written protest signs in case the school pulled that thoughtless stunt again.
  

Enough! It's past my bedtime. Sleep well and warm!

Karen


Related entries:

Winter Wonderlands, 1966, 1976, 1986

The Lost Railroad and the Land of Salamanders

Snow, Rare and Otherwise

Snow by Day; Not Too Fine a Mess

Snow!