It’s cold here. No, that doesn’t describe it. It’s COLD here. Colder than a well digger’s tata. Somebody left the door open to the Arctic and it blew down here to north Texas. Don’t get me wrong, it gets cold here. When it hits the 50’s we bring out jackets. Down into the 40’s we pull out the sweaters. When it hits the 30’s, we have mufflers and gloves and heavy coats on. But this week it is supposed to get down into the teens. We become paralyzed. We don’t have the clothes for low temperatures, so to compensate for that, we put on everything in our closets until we look like a bunch of marshmallows walking around with our arms sticking straight out.
We go to grocery stores and buy all the milk, batteries, firewood and food we can carry because we might be frozen in for an hour or so. Sweaters come out for our pets and we drink hot chocolate by the gallons in front of roaring fires. I do not have a fireplace, so I pull my dog under the blanket with me for added warmth.
Today we’ve got the cold, with a terrible windchill, and then a mix of rain, sleet or snow fell last night. These are the days transplanted Northerners wait for. They love to sit back and watch us try to drive on the slick. There’s dumb ole bubba over there in his dually pickup screaming down the highway at 50 until he hits an ice patch. Oops, makes contact with the guardrail and ties up traffic for an hour. Then you got Grandma Gertie who’s scared to go over 5, hits an ice patch and stops cold. The five cars behind her slide into each other and they tie up traffic for an hour and a half. The rest of us just try to navigate the freeways without running into either one of them and the northerners just wish we’d all stay home so they could get where they are going with no trouble.
The schoolchildren all listened eagerly to the radio this morning to see if they get a complete snow day (yeah) or just a delayed opening (boo). Who doesn’t like an unexpected day off? Not so with the company I work for. Oh, I don’t have to come, but I have to burn PTO, which I don’t have, so here I sit. People are gradually starting to arrive.
My dad tells a story of several years ago, he and my mom were coming home from the Lectureship at ACU. It was a freak ice storm that was moving east to west and everyone east of Abilene was trying to get home. Conditions were pretty scary and he and my mom and anther couple were making the best time they could. They came to Ranger Hill which by Texas standards is a pretty steep grade and cars had slid off on both sides of the road. Blocking their lane of traffic was a car stopped dead. My dad got out of the car and ran up to see if he could help and found a woman, gripping the steering wheel frozen with fear. If I remember right, she may have a child or two with her, but was definitely not going anywhere on her own. Nothing was wrong with the car, so my dad had her scoot over and took her wheel, while someone else drove my mom down the hill. Once they hit the bottom, she was fine, but needed an extra hand. How many of us would let some strange man get in the car with us these days? I know I wouldn’t.
Sometimes cold weather brings out the good Samaritans in us, but most of the time it brings out the idiots.
All I can say is take care, stay warm and drive smartly because there are those who won’t.
Peace and joy,
Stevie
Copyright 2010 Stevie Stevens, All Rights Reserved. For information please contact faithleap@sbcglobal.net
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