So, it has been cold lately. Bitter freaking cold. They call the phenomenon the “Polar Vortex,” most severe such blast of arctic air since the mid 1980s, when they were telling us to panic about the coming of the next Ice Age, which apparently was caused by prehistoric SUV use by my Neolithic ancestors.
The genetic website “23 and Me” tells me I carry 4.1 percent Neanderthal blood, so I am proud my ancestors were diverse enough to date outside the species. But the cold was causing me to run a fire around the clock down at Refuge Farm, and naturally I wanted to talk to Marlow, who dodged the chill down at his place in Charleston.
I pushed my battered fedora back on my brow, reached for a virtual Lucky Strike and a real slug of decent Scotch and made the call. After the usual pleasantries, we got to the matter of cold.
“Yo, Vic, he said, I have been glancing at the Weather Channel, where the natural world becomes show-biz. But it is real. I remember a death-defying cold weather tale from long ago: We were totally unprepared for one of these Vortex things. No cellphones, Weather.com or cable TV Weather Channel back then. Had we crashed, we would have been in the soup. To top it off, we had no real winter coats. After a day of unsuccessfully shopping for them amongst the spring wear then for sale in northern Indiana, we hit Salvation Army, etc. and bought whatever they had.”
“Been there,” I said ruefully, having arrived in places like Northwest River Labrador unprepared. The Indians went through my pockets at the airport looking for stuff they could use in the deep freeze.
Marlow continued soberly. “I should have known something bad was up when I turned off of US 31 north of Kokomo and the engine temp needle was hovering around the gauge’s big C. I did what any experienced Midwesterner would do — down shifted and lowered the heater’s fan motor speed.”
“Then nature gave me another couple of clues I ignored — drifting powder snow atop hard packed, old snow and strong straight winds. I had driven this road many times before and knew where the road bed was in relation to the farm fences and mostly snow filled ditches. Pressed on I did. A 22 minute trek on this county road turned into an hour long ride in the darkness of blowing snow across a featureless landscape. Lucky the radio worked, and we listened to the small town’s rock station as the car shivered.”
Memories hit me of nights in Northern Michigan, wondering if I could get home in the swirling snow. Marlow continued: “When we got there, the family was so glad to see us, but the oldest men whispered their surprise that we had successfully attempted the crossing in such a small “piece of crap Jap car.”
“Since I was the most nimble, I was elected to take extension ladders out to clear the growing snowpack from the family’s various houses in town. I used rakes, lumber and other items to break and then push the white stuff off.”
“This was too cold for much snow here,” I said. “Up there, this storm just killed. Nine dead, I heard.”
“Well, that week in Indiana was when I became a born-again Southerner.”
I contemplated the brutal reality of the upper Midwest. I took a sip of warming alcohol and said “in terms of this current chill, I called my older boy in Detroit to see how they were doing. They were ready, though the grandkids are going to have cabin fever shortly.”
Marlow laughed, and I suspect he was having his own life-giving drink. “Did I mentionthat my older daughter and son in-law who live in South Bend way up in northern Indiana lost power for 2 hours last night with temps in the minus 20s? Yeesh. We are staying in Charleston until the next ice age.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a sip of scotch and snubbing out a virtual Lucky in the virtual ashtray. “We had snow one time in Jacksonville when we were stationed down in Florida and it was pure madness on the roads. No one down there can drive on snow or ice. Growing up, we had a family cabin in Northern Michigan when I was growing up. At twenty below, we had parkas, snow pants, muklucks for the feet and engine block heaters for the winter blast. When the temperature gets that crazy, you have to adapt.”
“No shit,” said Marlow with authority. “Preparedness is everything. You have to be ready.”
“I remember the first time I recall being unready and recognizing the reality to deal with the chill when the family is aboard and counting on you. I got a glimmer one time when Dad drove us to cousin Janice’s wedding in Rochester, NY. It was back in the sixties. It was fine going east from Detroit in the Rambler station wagon. Coming back after the reception, we hit a howler of a blizzard that was spreading east.”
“It was like an icy punch to the gut even in the back-seat of the Rambler wagon. Dad lost the road in the black-and-white world and drove into a white field, knowing only that things had suddenly become oddly bumpy. He was a Navy pilot and could handle anything, so this was not a case of incompetence but like driving direct into the frozen heart of winter.”
“Not much matches a white-out in the dark,” mused Marlow, thinking back.
“Dad, bless him, let the car run to keep us warm and got out to hike to the farmhouse on the hill to ask for help. We all lived.”
“Exactly my point,” said Marlow, pausing for a moment to take what I presumed was a puff on a fine Cuban cigar. “Be ready.”
“I completely agree. My cousin, no fool, later moved to Galveston and became mayor. There, she lost her house in a hurricane. Sometimes Mother Nature just laughs at our folly.”
“No shit,” said Marlow. “Of course she does. There is something to be said for careers like we had in places like Hawaii or Key West.”
I thought about the mellow memory of Bellows Beach on the North Shore of O’ahu and something came to me out of the swirl of memory. “I remember the story of the Panzer commander on the Ostfront who had to build fires under his tanks to get the lubricants unfrozen. Eventually the leviathans rumbled to life, ready to challenge the Red Army. Triumphant with his success, he reached in the pocket of his greatcoat for his flask of schnapps for a snort before getting on with killing Russians.”
“No East Front for me,” said Marlow. “If I go to hell, it will at least be warm.”
“Yeah. The liquor was so cold, it froze the Commander’s esophagus and he died on the spot for the Fatherland. And for not putting the flask in an inner pocket.”
“Warmth,” he said, expelling a cloud of blue smoke, “with respect to the climate activists, is far better than cold. Remember the old Robert Service Klondike poem about ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’?”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s the first time I have been warm since I left Tennessee.”
“Dangerous as hell, these things. Particularly if you have not been to the store for toilet paper, eggs and milk.”
“I got to the liquor store in plenty of time. I know about vortexes. And the daffodils will be back in six weeks.”
“Stay warm,” concluded Marlow. “And stay well stocked.”
Copyright 2019 Vic Socotra and My Isle Seat
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