{"id":9024,"date":"2014-02-25T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=9024"},"modified":"2014-02-25T09:48:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T14:48:32","slug":"your-coldest-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/02\/25\/your-coldest-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s your coldest memory?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"January<\/a>

January 2014 at my house. Photo: Ellen Rocco<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve said it before and it really is true: I love the winter. I’m happy to get outside on snowshoes or skates, or just as happy to hunker in near the wood stove with a 600-page tome. Hearty soups and grainy bread. C’mon, it’s all good.<\/p>\n

Mostly. Then there comes a moment–round about mid-February–when the sun is higher and the daylight lasts longer and the season starts tilting, albeit imperceptibly at first, toward Spring.<\/p>\n

So, the forecast for this week–cold, colder, even colder by weekend–seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Isn’t it time to get going on maple sugaring? Or cleaning out and organizing the shed? Isn’t it supposed to be milder outside?<\/p>\n

This all got me to thinking about the times I was coldest. There are a lot of examples. The first occurred within a couple of weeks of moving to the North Country. Living in an old farmhouse with marginal heating, zero insulation, and no (hot) running water, I fell into a just-thawed creek sometime in early March and thought I would die. Couldn’t get warm for what seemed like days.<\/p>\n

\"Winter<\/a>

Winter sun. Photo: Ellen Rocco<\/p><\/div>\n

Another time, out cross-country skiing near my house I found myself breaking trail on a steep incline through moderately heavy woods and unexpectedly deep snow. It wasn’t super cold, about +10F, but dressed as one dresses to x-c ski (relatively lightweight clothing geared to constant and strenuous movement), when I became tangled up and semi-trapped in the deep snow, I started feeling hypothermia set in in what seemed like just minutes.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, I remember a skiing trip to Killington. I had those useless old-fashioned boots and socks that were okay at +20F but ineffective on this particular -15F day on the slopes. By the time I made it back to the ski chalet, I collapsed in tears in the ladies room as I took off my footwear and the blood slowly returned.<\/p>\n

Or the Christmas eve drive to Syracuse back in the early ’80s in a car without a heater, at -35F. Our hosts tipped us into a hot tub when we arrived shivering and stiff.<\/p>\n

I’m not a winter mountain climber, back-country skier or Arctic explorer, but even these relatively mundane incidents (and there are lots more) occupy a permafrost ice cube in my brain.<\/p>\n

Lay ’em on me…your stories of cold and colder. It will make this week seem warmer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve said it before and it really is true: I love the winter. I’m happy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9024"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9034,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9024\/revisions\/9034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}