Me & Snow?

Okay, the real meat of "Florida Boy Goes North!" Short history lesson: I was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 1946. And I lived there my entire youth. When I graduated from high school in 1964, I had already enlisted in the US Air Force, and 10 days after I left St. Thomas Aquinas, I was on a plane to San Antonio, Texas for Basic Training. And after 8 weeks of intro to military life, I was sent north to Rantoul, Illinois, to Chanute Air Force Base for my technical training in electronics. I arrived in late July, and immediately started thinking about "winter."  Another trainee by the name of Wayne Kouchi, a Hawaiian, was barracked with me, and the two of us had never, ever seen snow! So when the weatherman forecast snow for the first time, in late November, we were thrilled. We told the barracks guard (there was always someone on guard in every barracks at night - don't ask me why) that as soon as the first flakes fell, he was to come and wake us up. He was a northern boy and thought we were both nuts! Well, he was half-right, anyway.

Around 3 AM (oh-three- hundred, for you military types, or simply oh-dark-thirty), we were roused from sleep to see snow flakes softly falling outside our window. Within 3 seconds, we were outside in our skivvies, running around in the snow and trying to make snowballs from the sparse fall. And that would be the first and last time we would cheer the snow. Weeks later we got our first really bad weather - very cold, probably around 10-15ºF at 0500, which is when we were awakened by reveille and had to march to breakfast and then to tech school. No matter that it was colder than I had ever believed it could be (only in the Antarctic, I thought), but dark, windy and I was dressed in layers: first, the thermal long-johns, then two pair of socks, a T-shirt, a sweat shirt, sweat pants, a pair of jeans, my fatigue pants, a field jacket liner, my field jacket, glove liners and gloves, and finally heavy rubber boots. Sometimes, we even had to wear a face mask. And then came the book-bag with our notebooks and textbooks. Marching across the flight line one morning, I slipped and fell on the ice. I couldn't have hurt myself if I had tried, I was so heavily cushioned. BUT - there was no way I was getting up on my own. Now I knew how a turtle feels on his back. Remember this scene from "A Christmas Story"? Well, I know just how Randy felt! It took 3 airmen to get me back on my feet.

As we got "undressed" and ready for class inside the hangar, I couldn't feel my fingers. I couldn't even hold a pen to write. So I went into the latrine, turned on the hot water and ran my hands under the flow! Bad, BAD mistake - it felt like I had set my hands on fire! One of the instructors heard my screams and took me outside, where he advised me to put my bare hands in the snow. Oh, the relief! Anyway, to make a long story short, that winter turned out to be one of the most severe Chanute had ever experienced. We had snow drifts that covered our barracks - I woke up one morning and all I saw was white. The snow had piled up over the windows to the roof. And the room was freezing.  I went to turn up the radiator that was heating our room, and found out that it was frozen solid. The temps plunged to around 10 below zero, and believe it or not, we still marched to school every morning. Northern winters and snow had taken their toll on this Florida boy.

Later on in the Air Force, I visited Minot AFB in Grand Forks, North Dakota and found out that the temperature could go even lower than 10 below...way below! Years later, I took a job with an electronics firm that sent me to school in Greeley, Colorado - in the winter time. I loved the Rockies, and I loved the scenery, but the snow I could have lived without. That was only a 60-day exposure. When I finished the training, I was sent to Manhattan in NYC to work, in the winter. I lasted until Easter, and quit over salary, but the winter helped the decision. After every experience, it was always back to my home state of Florida. On January 19th, 1977, it actually snowed in Ft. Lauderdale! Aside from that rare event, I successfully kept myself away from the Great White North.

And then I met Jen, and fell in love! Strange story, but she was a Jersey girl who had moved to South Florida to live with her older sister Carolyn as a teen-ager. She met and married her first husband in Hollywood FL, and had both of her daughters there, and then moved to Pennsylvania to live and raise her family. She had vowed, before she ever heard of me, that she would never, ever return to Florida. Me? Well, I had sworn I'd never leave Florida. And then we met, circumstances that I will cover in another post, and Jen ended up marrying me and living 1,000 miles from where she had started her family. But she always longed to return to PA, and be with her kids and a growing brood of grandchildren. Fast-forward 15 years, and with grand-child #7 on the way, it was time to go back home. And although I had sworn I would never leave that good ol' Sunshine State, we were packing and making plans to head north.

My friends and co-workers all chided me - "People leave Pennsylvania and move to Florida! Why the heck do you want to leave Florida and move to PA?" Even Jen had thoughts about how Florida winters were still not cold, and kept dropping lines like "It gets to 10º and colder!" to remind me of my fate. Still, I had no family left in Florida, her family is my family, hence I have 2 daughters and soon-to-be 7 grandkids, and home was now in the Lehigh Valley of PA. No reason to keep me down South (except for the mild winters), and I wanted more than ever to bring Jen back to the family she always longed for.

And so I will "throw myself on the grenade" for the family, and endure what I know is coming. I think. I have never driven in snow, or ice. I have never shoveled snow from my front sidewalk. I have never had to walk my dogs in the snow (and, I might add, my poor poochies have absolutely NO idea what will happen when I open that door and the ground is covered with white stuff!), and I have to face the associated chores of making sure we have enough fuel oil for our furnace...I had never even seen an oil furnace until now. In New York, in Hastings-on-the-Hudson where I had rented a place, there was an old coal furnace - now that is a story I will tell someday!

What will happen with me and snow? I honestly do not know. But I am ready to man up and face it full-bore. It has been 66 years since I was born, and for those 66 years, I never really had to deal with this northern winter stuff. But that is over now. I'm not visiting Pennsylvania, I live here. For good, for real, and most likely for the remainder of my life. Crazy thing is, Jen is already talking about going South for the winter. She's half-kidding, half-serious. But I'm planning on going out and buying myself some Northern winter wear - thermal underwear, a good coat (probably a parka!), rubber boots, and absolutely an all-wheel drive vehicle of some kind. It has been suggested that we also install a remote starter for our car so we can have it warming up before we go out the door. I'm sure there will be other suggestions coming forth. And I'm not looking forward to the first of many times when I will find myself flat on the ground after a slip on the ice.

But I also want to learn how to snow-board. Our oldest, Annie, and her family take to the slopes every winter, and she has promised to show me how to kill mys...er...negotiate the bunny slope on a board. And Jen, sweet Jen, has promised to do everything in her power to keep me off that snow-board. She's probably right! I'm looking forward with some trepidation and some eager anticipation at my first winter here in Pennsylvania. I know it's going to be cold. I know it's going to snow. I know all the leaves will fall off the trees. I know the days will be gray and sunless. I know all these things.

I just haven't experienced them yet! Wish me luck! Better yet, pray for me! I say with certainty that God has brought us to Pennsylvania, and that He has told us: "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That is Jeremiah 29:11, and it is inscribed in Jen's wedding band. Thank you, Lord for bringing us here!