Deep in the bowels of the Arctic wasteland that we call home. Too cold to venture outside to do the smallest of tasks, our hero's, Tango and Gladys, find themselves staring at each other. Wondering who is going to go crazy first. (My money is on Gladys.) Gladys had a job at a nursing home for the winter, but now she has quit that to prepare for soup season which is just around the corner. One day at home and she is climbing the walls from boredom. I on the other hand have seen my days of soul searching and reflection, have come to an end with questions of "what are we going to do today?" A nonstop question that goes on and on. I often have to stop and wonder where in the heck I put my duct tape.
Today's forecast.
A cold week for sure.
A dire warning.
Thanks to the weather service looking out for us. I remember as a kid long, long ago, the weather people would be like this. "It's going to be cold today so bundle up." This cold weather though is what keeps us inside. Hunkered down until spring. No energy or motivation to do much at all. The only thing keeping us going is all of the photos of friends and family who are able to travel to warmer weather showing us how nice it is to not be here. LOL. Maybe it's our jealousy that keeps us warm. I don't know.
I remember as a kid, we never ever thought of not going outside. We would throw on our snowsuits, boots with bread bags, gloves and hats and be outside for hours. Never ever really feeling the cold. We were oblivious of the temps. If we didn't want to go out, my mother would make us go out just to get some peace and quiet. At school we would be able to play on the snow piles that were built up in the parking lots. They were huge. Have you ever played "King of the hill" with about 50 other kids. Utter chaos. We had teams but after a while it was just a free for all.
In my teens in High School my father bought my brother and I snowmobiles. I think my sister got a new Barbie or something. My brother got an Arctic Cat JAG 3000 snowmobile.
I got an Arctic Cat JAG 2000. The difference being that the 3000 had electric start while mine had to be pull started.
See that handle there with the red arrow. You pulled that to turn over the engine. Some days when it was really, really cold it would take quite a few times to get that thing started. I had arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I knew if I couldn't start it, I couldn't ride it. My brother on the other hand had a real muscular thumb.
I remember we had this game we would play when my brother would invite a friend over. There would be three of us and only two sleds. (slang for snowmobile). The game went like this. We lived in the country and two people would ride around the house. The third person would hide somewhere and when a sled came around the corner, he would jump out and try to knock the person off the sled and steal it. Needless to say I don't think our parents were home at the time. Good times.
Now that I think about it, my brother and I had identical Motorcycles also. Suzuki 185's. Only his had electric start and mine had to be kick started. Hmmmmm.
Back in the old days, when I started to drive, was a challenge in winter. We didn't have SUV's with 4 wheel drive or cars with all wheel drive. We didn't even know what any of that was. We had a car, with rear wheel drive and that was it. You had to learn how to drive on snow and ice. Drifting was an every day thing. Not just made for movies. If you got stuck, you had to learn how to rock your vehicle to get it unstuck. Forward and back, forward and back until you finally broke free. It's not like we got stuck and then had to call our dads from our Cell phones. We didn't even want our dads to find out.
I remember one time I was driving my 59 Cadilac Coupe de Ville under a train over pass. It was glare ice on the road. As I reached the top of the hill the lights were red ahead of me. I hit the brakes which sent the car into a 360 degree spin coming to a stop just behind the car in front of me. I should have jumped out and yelled "TADA!" but in fact I may have sharted. Thankfully I didn't end up in the ditch.
That's it for my reminiscing. Stay warm out there. Except for everyone showing us beach pictures. I hope you get sand in your bathing suits.
