Tag: Winter

Of Mice and Men

The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men go oft awry.

            –Robert Burns, 1786

We’re in the depths of winter here in Wisconsin, and respite from the cold weather is proving hard to come by. The temperatures have been below zero on most days, with the wind-chill numbers dipping even lower. I’ve grown my winter beard, but my morning walks have been bracing, to say the least. Plus, every time we start to feel as if Covid is behind us, that deadly and shape-shifting virus rears its ugly head once again. The result has been that many of our plans for the winter have had to change.

Last Friday, I was supposed to attend a party hosted by my employers from Kilkarney Golf Club. They had come up with the creative idea of providing dinner and a different sort of entertainment at a bar in Stillwater, Minnesota, a short distance from here. The featured activity at this bar, called The Lumberjack, is axe throwing. Apparently, that is a real thing these days, although I’ve never done it myself. I was so excited about taking part in this unusual competition that I tried to figure out how to practice this esoteric art form. I had sold my axe when we moved from Nashville, so I was forced to practice with my chainsaw. I figured, they’re both used to cut down trees aren’t they? The neighbors became alarmed when they saw a whirring, sharp-toothed implement flying across my backyard, so I had to “cease and desist,” in the words of the court order. My stepson, Ben, a doctor, expressed dismay over the fact that I planned to attend, but I argued, “What could possibly be dangerous about being in a crowded bar with drunken 22-year-old people throwing axes?” Then I realized that he was talking about Covid, which has been rampant up here, so I had to bow out.

We’ve also received several pieces of bad news from friends. In December, our son-in-law, Kevin was told he needed quadruple bypass surgery because of heart problems. He had the operation in early January, and he and Kristin were unable to visit us during the holidays as we had originally planned. The good news is that he came out of it in good shape and is now mending well. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I learned that a friend of mine from Chicago had died. I had known Mort for forty years or so, and he was married to a good friend I’ve known for even longer. Mort was an interesting guy, and I always knew I was in for a fun evening when I saw him. He also was rather unconventional by modern standards. For many years, he refused to get a driver’s license. Where he lived, on the South Side of Chicago, public transportation was available and for years he could get along without driving. I think he finally caved and learned to drive, but he was probably into his forties when that occurred. He also rarely had a traditional sort of job. For a long time, he ran a sports book as his primary source of income, taking bets, setting odds and all of that. Later in life, he also bought a little neighborhood bar in the suburb of Burbank, where I lived during my high-school years. The sports-book endeavor was especially surprising since his brother-in-law was the chief of police of Burbank (and my college roommate). I was never sure how they worked all of that out. Mort was also a stubborn guy who refused to go to doctors. He had a painful knee ailment, but refused to ever have it looked at. That refusal might have been his ultimate downfall, though. He probably died from Covid, but still would not go to a doctor or hospital, so it was never officially diagnosed. Mort was a great guy and he will be missed.

The last piece of bad news reached us in a strange way. Our friend Mary was a teacher with Kathleen in the ‘70s. She served as a mentor for her and they remained Christmas-card friends for many years. About 18 years ago, we visited with Mary and her husband, Bill. Bill was a Cub fan and history teacher, like me, so we hit it off right away. Bill died in 2019, but we stayed in contact with Mary, and she sent me some of Bill’s Cubs memorabilia. In 2020, just before Covid hit, she invited us to use her winter home in Punta Gorda, Florida. Kathleen and I stayed there for a week and had a wonderful time. Last summer, we had a great dinner with her in her suburban Chicago home, catching up with an old friend. At that time, she offered us her Florida home for a full month and refused to take any money for our stay. We planned to go there for the month of February. That was Mary’s most striking characteristic—her kindness. She used to be a nun, and she was always generous with her time, money, and possessions. After Bill died, she thought about selling the Florida place, but decided to keep it, primarily so that she could lend it to her friends for a month at a time. This is a wonderful home, a short walk from a golf course and stores, with a screened back yard, complete with heated pool. She kept up the utilities, cable, maintenance, etc. just so her friends and relatives could enjoy the home when they wanted. As of last week, we still had not heard from Mary, nor had she replied to Kathleen’s Christmas letter. By way of the internet, Kathleen discovered that she had died in December. We knew she had cancer, but the surprising news still hit us both pretty hard.

Okay, this is the part where I display my shallow, self-centered personality. After hearing about Mary’s death, I had a brief George Costanza moment. In this scenario, I could picture me, in my George persona, showing up at Mary’s viewing and saying to the family, “You know, Mary said we could stay at her place for February. Do you think you could delay putting it on the market until March?”

Alas, even I am not capable of such a callous act, and we had to scramble to rearrange our February plans. Instead of our month in sunny Florida, we will remain in Wisconsin for most of the month. Our frozen winter will be broken only by a visit with Kathleen’s step-mother in Southern Illinois, followed by a trip to see Kristin and Kevin in Huntsville, Alabama. We still hope to go on a spring trip to Europe for a Viking cruise with Kristin and Kevin, but we’ll have to see if Covid will cooperate with those plans. As usual, Bobby Burns knew what he was talking about.

Song for a Winter’s Night

When you live in Wisconsin, as we do, February is the longest month of the year, despite having only 28 days. It snows at least once a week, the white piles mount higher and higher along the streets and parking lots, and temperatures hover near zero or lower. When you mix in the Covid isolation and our self-imposed austerity (dieting, no drinking or excess spending), it’s a concoction that could be terribly depressing. The urge to get out of the house and do something to fend off cabin fever can become overwhelming, so every day, I set out for a long walk. These solitary excursions remind me that there is beauty in the winter landscape, and that life goes on beneath the gelid surface.

Yesterday, I woke up at 4:30 and checked the online weather page for River Falls. I don’t like to do this, but it’s apparently some sort of requirement in Wisconsin. The same way that other people my age check the obits every morning to see if they’re listed there, each day, people in Wisconsin check the temperature and the snow forecast. They read about the projected snowfall or plummeting temperatures and smile and nod with a strange sort of pride, saying “Ah, yeah; it’s gonna be brutal.”

I usually wait until it gets light and warms up a bit before heading out for a long walk of an hour or more. On Monday, when I woke up, it was 12-below with a wind chill factor of about 20-below. Later, I drove downtown to get some variety in my walk, and when I passed the bank on Main Street, the clock read 8:30 and 8-below zero. By the time I had walked completely around the college campus and returned to my car, though, the sun was warming things up, and the temperature was up to 6-below. The sunshine is bright, giving the illusion of warmth, and it feels great to be outside.

Everyone tells me that it’s been a mild year in terms of snowfall, but there’s well over a foot of the white stuff in the yards, and the plows have pushed it into massive piles that are taller than I am. I hated snow when I lived in Chicago, largely because it turned black and depressing within a day or two. Because of the light traffic and more-frequent snowfalls, though, that doesn’t usually happen here. In fact, this week, a quarter-inch to an inch of snow fell each night, like a fresh coat of paint on a dingy wall. It wasn’t enough to require shoveling, but just enough to make it pretty again. The snow on the streets is packed down and slick, but everywhere else, it’s beautiful and white. In fact, last month, we had a full week of an incredible phenomenon that I had never seen before. It’s called “Rime Ice,” and it’s a special situation where weather conditions create lots of fog, but at night the fog freezes into a crystalline state on everything. The result (see picture above), is a fantastic display of nature at its most beautiful, with ice shining like diamonds on the streets, on top of the snow, and on the branches of trees and bushes.

The weather is cold, but I’m better prepared for my second winter in Wisconsin. My most frequent online purchases have been from Eddie Bauer and L. L. Bean, so I now have good boots and a light-weight coat that claims it will keep me warm in temperatures down to 35-below. I don’t plan on testing that lower extreme, but it’s comforting to know that I could. The boots make it difficult to run, but I walk fast, and they don’t hinder me in that regard. I’ve grown a winter beard, which is also required by law in Wisconsin, so the only part of me that is cold is my pink cheeks above the white beard. I picture myself as a thinner version of Santa Claus as I roll through town. On the coldest days, my tears freeze on my eyelashes, and the condensation from my breath forms little balls of ice on my beard.

On my walk today, I saw one scene that reminded me of a Currier and Ives print from the 1800s. Near the downtown area, a mail-delivery girl, in sunglasses because of the bright sun, was high-stepping her way through the deep snow, trying to reach the mailbox on one particular house. In River Falls, the older sections of town still have boxes attached next to the front doors, and the mail-persons deliver it right to the door. I felt bad that the owners had not shoveled the walk leading to their mailbox, but despite the snow and her heavy load, she had a big smile and greeted me cheerfully. Another great moment occurred a few days ago when we attempted to pick up the kids for a home-school session at our house. A heavy snow and underlying ice made it difficult for Kathleen to get up Ben’s fairly steep driveway. She was stuck halfway in the driveway and halfway in the street. I was frantically trying to shovel the drive and get some salt down because a snow plow was bearing down on us from a block away. Instead of being angry at us for blocking his way, the driver stopped, got out with a big smile, and asked if he could help us. If that same situation had occurred in Chicago, we would have been buried in a shower of snow while the driver flipped us off and sped past. I love River Falls.

One day, I chose the more difficult route along the foot paths that follow the Kinnickinnic River. The river and its South Branch are frozen over, with solid white portions of the surface broken up by shiny sections that look like glass. If you look closely, you can see beneath the surface where the water continues to bubble and move downstream, toward the St. Croix River, seven miles away. Similarly, I saw no animals, but tracks were visible everywhere in the fresh snow, mostly deer, rabbits, and squirrels, with the occasional large paw prints of some critter I hope to avoid. A large tree, which I had noticed weeks ago, now lies parallel to the ground, a victim of the local beavers. The trunk is over a foot in diameter, and I noticed it earlier because you could see that the felling work had begun, with busy teeth cutting a deep vee uniformly around the trunk. Those relentless efforts were eventually rewarded, and the tree came down. Smaller trees in the area have also been chewed down. I edged to the bank of the river, but could see no lodge or dam under construction. Perhaps dam-building is a springtime endeavor. The nearby Powell Dam, about which I had written earlier, is still open, and Lake Louise remains drained. The city recently said that the dam may never be repaired, as the $100,000 cost to fix a dam that they are planning to take down in a few years anyway seems senseless. I was amused by the irony of one dam being scheduled for demolition, while, a quarter-mile downstream, the beavers are preparing to build another.

I paused to contemplate the fact that, beneath the surface, there are probably many animals in hibernation for the winter. This is a fascinating annual condition for many creatures, wherein their cardiovascular systems slow down dramatically, enabling them to conserve energy during times of extreme cold and a lack of food sources. Tree frogs, the greatest hibernators of them all, actually stop breathing and pumping blood completely during the winter. As I walk along the river, I contemplate the possibility that box turtles, bats, birds, and hedgehogs, cousins of the famous Punxsutawney Phil from Pennsylvania, could be hibernating within a few feet of me. A bit more unnerving is the thought that there could be a nest of hundreds, or even thousands, of garter snakes, hibernating and curled together for warmth, in a nest beneath my feet.

I guess the theme here is that while, to all outward appearances, everything is quiet and dormant, there’s a lot going on if you take the time to look closely. Also, despite the snow, ice, and frigid temperatures, this is a beautiful place to call home.

I just read the forecast for tomorrow, and a weather advisory warns that the wind-chill factor will dip down to 50-below zero. Perhaps my new coat will be fully tested after all.

I leave you with a short video. The school at which I taught, Harpeth Hall, has a special program called Winterim in January. For three weeks, the juniors and seniors travel to Europe or other exotic locales, or they serve internships of one sort or another. Meanwhile, the freshmen and sophomores take unique, brief courses that are only taught at that time. I always enjoyed Winterim, because I could teach anything I wanted for those three weeks. Among other courses I created was one I team taught with an irrepressible colleague, Joe Croker. We called it “Songwriting for Guitar,” and we took ten novice musicians and tried to teach them how to play guitar and compose their own songs in just three weeks. In 1999, my second year of teaching that class, we had a remarkable group of freshmen. At the end of the class, we recorded some of the songs they wrote and some cover versions of other songs. I recently found that CD and, this week, I made a film to accompany a version of Gordon Lightfoot’s Song for a Winter’s Night. The four girls were all 14-year-old freshmen, most of whom had never sung in front of others or played guitar before that class. I was amazed at the sophisticated harmonies they worked out for this wonderful song. Enjoy.

Song for a Winter’s Night

Winter Wonderland

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.

-Carl Reiner

Low temperatures and snow are the realities of winter in River Falls. Today (Saturday, Jan. 18th) we have about 7 inches of new snow on the ground with more coming. Temperatures will be falling all day, and they will end up in the single digits with wind chills about 10-below zero. Last night, we drove the half-mile to Ben’s house for dinner in white-out conditions, with winds whipping the snow around in swirling circles that reduced visibility to a short distance. It was beautiful. People have widely disparate views of cold weather, but most people dislike it. Recent polls show that only 10% of Americans indicate that winter is their favorite season.

I always liked snow—as long as I didn’t have to drive in it. One of the worst snow storms I ever encountered was in April in the early ‘80s while driving from Chicago to Stevens Point, Wisconsin to visit a girlfriend. I couldn’t see the front of my car, and I was scared to death for that entire drive. On the other hand, I always enjoyed shoveling snow for some reason. I think it is the peaceful nature of the activity. A fresh snowfall hides all of the dirt and muffles the noise of the world. It’s as if everything is cleansed or purified in some way. During my musician days in Chicago, I would often get home at 2:00 in the morning after a gig or from tending bar. That was my favorite time to shovel snow. At that time, I felt as if I was the only person in the world. Also, one of the fondest memories of my childhood was the record-setting blizzard that hit Chicago in January 1967. Twenty-three inches of snow fell in a few hours and effectively shut the city down. We received a rare snow day, and I remember walking through thigh-high snow down the middle of 111th street with my siblings without a car in sight. Then, that night, an amazing thing happened. Snow plows were over-extended from trying to dig the city out from under 2 feet of snow, and our little side street was low on the list of priorities. Instead of waiting several days until the plows reached us, however, all of the neighbors on our block got together, and we dug a path down the entire block to the main street. These were neighbors who nursed petty grievances, bickered with each other, or otherwise had trouble getting along. But that day, they set their differences aside and worked together in common cause. Everyone—men, women, and children—got involved with that Herculean task and shoveled a path to 111th Street. I still smile at the memory.

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.

-Anne Bradstreet

When we lived in Nashville, even a small snowfall of a few inches would create panic in the streets. All schools would have been closed the night before in anticipation of the impending calamity, and people would flock to grocery stores and empty the shelves, stocking up as if preparing for a zombie apocalypse. In Tennessee’s defense, though, there are several factors that make this a reasonable response. First, Nashville doesn’t get much snow; more often, they get freezing rain or ice which is much more difficult to navigate than snow. Second, they don’t have much snow removal equipment. They pay incredibly low taxes (about 1/3 of what we pay in Wisconsin), and it would not be economically feasible to buy a bunch of equipment that might not be used for years. Finally, Nashville is built on hilly terrain. Almost every stop-sign or traffic light is at the top or bottom of a hill. Add icy roads to that equation, and the city comes to a standstill. In River Falls and surrounding towns, the snow removal is excellent. Snow falls, they push it out of the way, and life goes on. Yesterday, I was out shoveling, and the operator of a city snow plow stopped to chat with me. He was cheerful and upbeat, despite the long hours that accompany dealing with a storm that would drop snow on us for about 20 hours. And that seems to be the thing that I have noticed most often about how people up here handle winter: they just shrug and deal with it.

Two days ago, I was driving downtown for breakfast and a quick trip to the Ace Hardware store. While driving, the disc jockey on the radio was giving the weather report. He said, “It’s five below zero today, and the wind-chill factor makes it feel like 27 below. Tomorrow, the low will be minus-one degree, so that’s not too bad. Then it will heat up to 23 degrees. That will feel pretty good.” Then, while at the hardware store to pick up paint supplies, I talked with the clerk at the register. As it always does around here, the subject of the cold came up. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s cold, but it’s sunny. That’s something.” I mentioned that we were supposed to get a sizable amount of snow on the weekend, and he said, “Who knows; yesterday they said we would get two inches, and all we got was some flurries. Now they’re saying that tomorrow we could get anywhere from 4 to 15 inches. What good is that info? They’re just covering their asses.”

One thing about cold weather: it brings out the statistician in everyone.

-Paul Theroux

Later that day, when discussing the weather, Tony, the plumber working on our bathroom re-model, told me “You just have to try new activities.” He added that his son loves ice fishing. I’d like to try that someday. Two other things I’d like to try, but have not tackled yet are cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Ben and Amber have a set of snowshoes, so perhaps I’ll give it a crack later today. Kids around here simply don’t seem to pay any attention to the weather. They just put on another layer of clothes and go out and play. There is an old Norwegian aphorism that I have read in the paper at least three times since we moved up here. It says, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

Well, it appears as if the snow has finally stopped. I guess I’ll layer-up and go shovel for the fourth and final time since yesterday. One final quote:

The cold never bothered me anyway.

-Elsa in Frozen