We were much heartier back then

Tomorrow will be the second day that school is closed due to cold weather. It's about -11F out there right now, going down to about -16F or so overnight. Maybe a bit lower. When I was a kid, back in the old days, we were never off of school because it was too cold. We walked 2 miles to school with paper bags on our feet, socks on our hands, through waist deep snow; even when it was below zero. And we liked it. Nobody cared if you lost a finger to frostbite, or a nose, or most any other appendage. (I did say most!)

Funny story about waist deep snow. Back in high school we would walk to school because the bus trip was longer than the walk and, in my opinion, any time off the bus was much better, no matter how cold. Anyway, we used to walk through this field to cut out about 1/4 of the distance to the school. At some time in late fall some construction was starting up in that open field, but it was covered up by snow for the most part. Well, one day walking home one of the guys happened to step into a foundation of one of this buildings that was covered in snow. He sunk up to his waist in snow and was pretty much trapped. We laughed at him a while before helping him out. So, yes, we did walk through waist deep snow. I wasn't lying. Well, at least one of us did.

I wonder; if I stayed outside in the cold without any gloves long enough, then I took my hand and whacked it against the car, would it shatter? You know, like that scene in Terminator 2 where the Robert Patrick terminator is in liquid nitrogen then he breaks into a million pieces? That would be kind of neat. I would be without a hand, but I'd have a nice scary story to tell the kids so they make sure to wear their gloves outside. Too much?

So, what's the point of this post? I'm not sure. But I wish work would be closed due to it being too cold outside.

Stop me if I've told this story about cold already. (I searched through the blog, but I couldn't find a reference to it.) Back in the mid-80's we had a really cold Christmas. I don't remember exactly what year it was, but my sister had an '84 Trans Am at that time. We were at my dad's house for Christmas and it was brutally cold out. It was one of those days you were afraid to kick the tire on accident, just in case it could shatter. I want to say the wind chill index was down around 50 degrees below zero. I could be wrong, and they changed the measurements for wind chill anyway, but it was close to that. What I remember most is it being so cold that my sister's car door locks wouldn't work. The key would go in, but that was it. But, somehow we were able to get the hatchback open. So, I had to climb through that to open the doors. It was fun. I felt a little bit like MacGuyver. Though he would have found a way to open the car door with some gum and a toothpick.

So, yeah, it's cold. It's winter. When do I leave for San Diego again?