The Preferred Community

Week One, 2008     3 Jan 08

Old Man Winter pays a visit!

Page #2

I remember it being cold when I was a kid, you know, when I was walking to school, 5 miles uphill in the snow, both ways, with no shoes on! Well, that's how I heard all the old timers tell it. I don't remember it being as cold as it is now. Maybe it's my memory or the fact that I lived out in Colorado for five years and found out what real winter time was all about. I think I even got frostbite a couple of times. Yes, I get cold now, but nothing like I did out there. 15 to 25 degrees below for weeks at a time, you know down there under 0 degrees where there aren't even numbers on the scale any more. You could literally put on everything you owned and still freeze. I remember having to plug my truck in at night if I even thought I might have to get out in it the next day. No, it wasn't an electric truck, but it had a plug on it to keep the engine oil and coolant from freezing. Yep, oil freezes in the Klondike! Shoveling show and ice became one of the things in life that I hated.

Anyway, it just seems colder now that I'm older. I think our internal thermostat stops working the older we get and I'm pushing the lifetime warrantee on mine. I know we need winter, but could we please have it in increments, like have it 60 degrees one day and 32 the next, and nothing under 32 please. I now know that my Dad's infatuation with wearing a coat and hat wasn't daine bramage after all. He was always telling us boys to put on a coat and a hat before we went out. It was the fact that he was cold and couldn't fathom the thought of us running around in short sleeves and with our heads not covered. I now tell my kids the same thing and it's because I'm cold, not because they are.

Winter does one thing for us, it makes us forget in just a few months how hot and dry it was last summer. When it's cold and rainy, we want the warm sunny days of the summer, not fully realizing just how hot it really was and I guess some of us want it to be cold when it's so hot outside, but not me. I prefer it to be hot! I guess that is what keeps us going season after season, always wanting something that we don't have and looking forward to the next high pressure front, whatever that is. Have a nice winter and enjoy the fact that you can go outside and draw a breath of cool air and get some work done. Come back here during the summer and read my rants when it's 101 degrees and we've had no rain for 30 days. I know it will be coming from my other self then, the one who hates to sweat! Have a happy winter folks and enjoy all we have to offer here in The Prattville Guide.

James Jones

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