You think this is winter? Well, check this out.




 

 

There are places in the world that can get pretty darn cold. Having been born in Chicago, I experienced snow and cold weather at a very young age. When I was a little older snow meant snowmen, snowballs, and snowsuits. (Most kids in Texas have probably never experienced for-real snowsuits.)

When I was six we migrated to Colorado. Montrose is a nice town on the Western Slope of the Continental Divide. Summers were nice, we had an actual autumn and we had winter, with snow. It lasted a few days and then it would be gone. I had a sled in Chicago and I could use it in Montrose.

I finished growing up in Grants, New Mexico. Grants gets a little snow, a nuisance more than a hardship. Growing up we had freezing weather and below during winter. I grew up wearing galoshes, warm coats, a warm cap, gloves or mittens, and a neckscarf. I grew up pretty much used to winter. Never a fan of it, but I was used to it.

In 1965 the United States Air Force sent me overseas to Wakkanai, Japan. First winter, we had about 250 inches of snow and didn’t see the ground for about three months. Low temperatures were around ten above 0. I came back to the United States, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and it was a LOT colder there— minus 40 degrees. And again, we had snow on the ground all winter.

After all that winter I really was beginning to dislike it. I had made so many snowmen I didn’t really need to make any more. After three winters in Northern Michigan I went to Vietnam and I have not had a truly cold winter since. From Vietnam I came to South Texas.

I have seen plenty of snow, experienced plenty of cold and really can do without the really cold winters. Oh, there will be readers who will grumble and say, “Try Fairbanks, Alaska,” but I’m not impressed. I like it here. If we have winters without snow, that’s okay. There’s a story about a man who started south with a snow shovel, and—when he reached a place where they asked “What’s that?” he decided that would be a good place to live. And that would be me.

WARREN DOMKE is a columnist for the Pleasanton Express.

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