Keep Your Tundra!

by Thomas M. Pender

Being raised in Michigan, and having lived in the Chicago suburbs for a few years before dropping down to the Deep South, I remember winter.  Real winter!  I’m now in the midst of my 13th “Southern winter,” and I have to admit, I still love being out of the snow.  I’m surrounded by folks who, born and raised in the South, covet snow.  They get all giddy when there is a 0.3% chance of snow, and they salivate whenever they see snowmen in TV commercials.  But I have been there, and I don’t wish to return.

Not only is it tougher to drive in the North in the winter, but you have to deal with shoveling pathways and driveways, re-shoveling driveways when the snowplows come through ten minutes after you’ve gotten out of your driveway-shoveling gear, and my old arch-nemesis: static electricity.

This isn’t the cute static electricity, where you rub a balloon against your hair and it sticks to the wall.  Oh, no!  This is the nerve-wracking static electricity, where each and every time you reach for a light switch, you receive a tiny preview of the electric chair.  At some point every late fall-into-early winter, Yankees are reminded of this winter hazard when the simple act of turning on or off a light jolts the tender pads of their fingertips, and gets them hopping and cursing.  For the remainder of the winter, our Northern friends either accept and make peace with the shocks, or they must go to extremes to avoid them.  Some may carry novels throughout the house, and touch their light switches with only the books’ spines.  Personally, I would turn lights on and off with the back of my hand, or the knuckles, where the shock is much lighter.  On occasion, I would simply swat the switch with my fingertips to eject the electricity, then flick it up or down normally.  In any case, it’s a headache which requires forethought and tactics to avoid.

Then there is the dryness.  When the outside world is white and snowy, and your house is heated to your comfort level, everything and everyone inside it gets dry.  Your skin cracks (and if not moisturized, bleeds), your nostrils become barren wastelands where the simplest blowing into Kleenex is a tiny blood-letting, and your lips join in the crack-and-bleed parade unless another moisturizer is purchased.

Wearers of eyeglasses know what happens whenever you step from the cold to the warm, too.  You fog up.  As a member of this club for over twenty years, here was an additional mini-migraine to the day.

Roads ice over.  Power goes out.  Slip-and-fall hazards become a daily occurrence.  And what happens when the spring is rumored to be around the corner?  Slush.  My birthday is in mid-March, but while the lion is morphing into the lamb, it is not a pretty sight.  Ice-edged snow patches join slush, slop and mud on the roads and driveways.  Every car is a moving mess of road salt, mud and ice, unless the driver chooses to expend even more winter cash on car washes.  Not until the birds are heard and the grass is at least a hint of green does the world become attractive or pleasant again.

What gets me wondering are the people who live in such places by choice.  I still have many friends up in that climate, dressing in layers and getting into intersection bumper-thumpers.  I don’t get it.  What I really don’t get is the ultimate insanity: ice fishing.  Imagine putting on numerous layers of clothing, plodding out into the wind chill and snow to walk out on a frozen lake, sit in an uninsulated tin shack, drink cold beer for the love of God, and stare at a hole in the ice waiting for nibbles.  These must be some severely unhappy husbands to go to such extremes to escape warm houses and experience such ridiculous conditions!

I stick with my annual mantra, repeated whenever I hear a Southerner moan for flurries:  “Yes.  Snow is beautiful.  That’s why God made postcards.  You can look at it, you can marvel at it, but you don’t have to shovel it and you don’t have to drive in it.”  In fact, the great thing about living on the Dixon side of the line is that you can visit snow!  If you really and truly hanker to make a snow angel, you can pack up the kids, drive straight north until you see snow banks, stop the car, get out, roll around in it, throw it, take pictures of your snowy happiness, get back in the car, and drive home.  This is the ultimate winter in my book.  “Woohoo, snowball!” . . . click . . . “Okay, kids, let’s go home. “  All the joy, none of the hassle.

I love you, Northern friends.  I just don’t understand you.