It was 9.5 degrees this morning, and even our meticulous canine researchers made a quick study of their morning business. The birds were not shy, urging me loudly to hurry up and restock the suet feeder, and like any guy who got clothes instead of toys for Christmas, I might have grumbled then, but I’m certainly grateful now for those Thinsulate gloves Tracey gave me.
I wonder if I would have felt any colder had the thermometer read 9.4 instead of 9.5 degrees. It’s up to 11 now, and that seems to hurt my face just as much. Technology has been my business, but part of me longs for the days of the mercury thermometer and everything that implies about the changes that came after the decimal.
It’s a balmy 14 degrees now – 14.0 to be precise. The sun shining through ice crystals creates a beauty that is as unique as it is ephemeral, but I’m glad I was watching my feet instead, to avoid stepping on that slick patch of ice.
Most of you will read this sometime after the impending snow and ice event which has captured the imaginations of local television stations and social media for weeks now. It doesn’t snow in the South as often as it once did, and to us, snow is a novelty until the power goes out and we can’t get off the Interstate. We used to call all this fuss “winter.” My friend in Dayton, OH, taking a break from blowing snow off his parking lot before it turns to ice and becomes covered with more snow, is not impressed.
My grandparents would not be impressed either. To paraphrase something my dad used to say, the trouble with people today is that not enough of them ever took a bath in a washtub in water heated on a wood stove. Dad remembered walking as a child through the snow to the old Titus Post Office and seeing the thermometer which read minus 17 degrees. The cow still had to be milked no matter what the thermometer said, and the difference between staying warm and shivering was having the foresight to stock up enough firewood long before the first snowflake fell.
Winters were less challenging in the placid days of my own youth. Gainesville seemed to suffer at least one ice storm every winter, and many who grew up there remember the flash and explosion of transformers blowing up in the middle of the night, with one less unfortunate squirrel longing for spring.
Realizing that power outages were not uncommon there in the winter, the thought of “total electric” never entered my parents’ minds. We lost the furnace when the power went out, but the folks would fire up the gas range and crack a few windows to heat that side of the house. We were all grateful for the gas water heater with the pilot light that kept burning, and some of my fondest memories include hot chocolate in the flickering light of my great-grandparents’ pewter kerosene lamp, which Mother kept as a useful keepsake.
I imagine that a child born today will one day hark back to playing Minecraft on his phone in the gentle light of an LED flashlight, bundled up and hoping that the batteries don’t give out before the power comes back on. After all, the burning of natural gas and propane in the US contributes a whopping 5% (5.25% to be precise) of the total global carbon footprint, so sacrifices have to be made. Gas water heaters in the US alone (all of them, not just the 40% to be temporarily banned) are responsible for .16% of global carbon. I’m confident you get the point.
It’s 23.9 now, and I can ditch the top layer of my down coat on my way to the shop. This is almost shirtsleeve weather, but I’m still grateful for those nuclear power plants at Brown’s Ferry and Watts Bar, and for the propane in the tank that will heat that hot chocolate later this afternoon. I’m praying for the guys who will be out in the snow and ice tomorrow to make sure the rest of us stay warm.
Outside The Box 