baby. it's COLD outside (memories of previous cold winters)

the 42nd parallel..... latitude in the northern hemisphere... The United States of America

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Memories of previous COLD winters around the 42 parallel.... but only going back to the winter of 2010, specifically January and February.

But first, I do have memories of previous "bastard" COLD winters. And an aside about a winter that I experienced, but do not actually have a memory of...  so, let us begin with the winter of my third year of life.  My father owned a vacation home, on the Chain of Lakes, in Lake County, Illinois. It was built with the intent of it being only a summer home.  (long ago people with enough money owned more than one home, to me today this seems unimaginable)  .... Homes such as this were not insulated, or "winterized" in any way at all.  In the fall things were turned off to prevent problems caused by freezing. For example the water was shut off and the pipes run to dry.  If they could, my parents would drive out there (about a 75 minute drive) once or twice during the winter to make sure that things were in good order.  Later they had friends who lived up there year around who would check on the house for them.  --- So, the winter of my third year my father had the lake house winter-ized.  This meant that we had to be there, because there were various workmen who needed to be let in to perform their duties in the remodel.  My parents prayed for a mild winter.  As you have guessed -it snowed and was rather cold. I HAD A BALL playing in the snow.... my parents were miserable.  And that is all I know of that story.

When I was a teenager there was a very cold winter. Dangerous wind chills more than -40F, below 0F/32C temperatures for a couple of weeks. I remember because I had a friend spend the weekend at our house. I also remember because letting our dog out I happened to look across at the neighbor's house and saw that his back door was open. I was concerned because he was old and he had a little dog.  We went over to check on Mr. Wille, but the dog would not allow us to enter the house.  My mother called Mr. Wille's daughter, and they found that he had suffered a stroke, and was not even aware that the door was open -let alone able to do anything about it.  Thankfully, Mr. Wille recovered and was able to thank us -in person, for being alert to the situation. 

I also remember, probably a couple of years later, a very cold winter week.... because I locked myself out of my car... at the Rexall Drug Store at Lee Street and Algonquin Road...  I was able to wait inside the store for my mother, who was at church to pass by, and was able to catch her -because it was so cold the car would not go fast, and the speed limit was about 25mph.... anyway I caught her attention and she pulled over and gave me her key to my car.  Problem solved.  Then my friend, Petra, and I drove out to Elgin to ski at Villa Olivia.... but it was no good, because they had to make snow for the runs, and when it is too cold the 'fake' snow just sits in clumps. It is very difficult to groom the slopes for skiing in those conditions.

On now, to 2010..... I was working for a company that performs various OSHA mandated testing procedures intended to help keep workers in industry safe. I won't give more details about that right now.... Anyway,..part of the testing takes place in a trailer -uninsulated... if it's cold outside it is a problem keeping the trailer warm.  In 2010 I worked with a lady in one of those trailers -traveling all over Iowa in January and February.  In those 50 days, between January 7 and February 26, it was NOT above 27 degrees, but for 1 day in mid-January.  WE FROZE!!! we could not get the built in heater to work properly, nor were we able to get the generator running for 46 of those days. It was miserable!! We made the best of it though,.... looking back I have to say that I believe that the 2 of us 'girls' enjoyed ourselves, in spite of the terrible cold. Blissfully, at the end of February word came that we were to be sent to Texas for March and April. We had more interesting adventures there, but that is for another blog.

On a cold winter's day in Iowa, in 2013, I came up with the idea for writing a blog called "Deep Thoughts --Thawing out the brain cells"..... I thought it was pretty clever....  *wink.

One other time, perhaps 2014 or 2015, a co-worker and I were working with a trailer, in the vicinity of Wausau, Wisconsin.... in January.  There was a cold spell, and it was about 5F for the high on a particular day.... a circuit breaker tripped during the night, leaving the trailer frozen solid... the built in heater was so cold that it was 4 hours, and our work done before it even got warm....  Using a propane space heater I was not able to raise the temperature inside the trailer above 27F.  I was ready to walk away at that point....

So, now it is January of 2018 and we have had more than 11 days of temperatures below 15F/-9C... including 2 days of below 0 (-32C) high temps.....  the first work day of 2018, January 2, when I drove to my job, at 4:45am it was -13 at the workplace parking lot.  It has been warmer in Antarctica than northern Illinois!!

It took 10 hours to get my office temperature up to 65F/18C, because it has one wall to the outdoors.
BBBRRRRRRRRRR!!!



If you live someplace that gets colder in the wintertime I apologize for whining about the cold, but gorram it! I am freezing to death! (waving at my Canadian friends)  At least I know how to dress in proper layers ...and I wear one of these:  

that's right! being warm and safe from frostbite is more important to me than what I look like.....

(If you live south of the 37th parallel don't even talk to me about cold. *wink)

red line is the 37th Parallel

..... mind you: i am no fan of hot temps either..... I prefer it to be between 45F/7C and 70F/21C.