Vermont Winter Reconsidered

Not my photo, but it was one of my bad choices!

When I drive into town in the winter and see kids waiting for the bus wearing hoodies and sneakers in February, I often wonder at what age do humans experience WRP (weather-related pain). My theory is that we begin to feel symptoms in our late 20s and WRP full onset comes when we hit 30.

Several of you have made nice comments in texts, emails, or postings about my memories of Vermont winters. Now I must confess that most of my best pre-WRP days came before I reached the big 3-0. I’m more than twice as old now, but 30 bothered me more than any of the other Big-Zero birthdays I’ve had. Maybe it was because I was a teen when Young Turks insisted, “Never trust anyone over 30.” I think, though a 13-year-old eight grader named Julie is the reason.

I contend that hell is a place where bad people must monitor an eighth-grade study hall for eternity. I really liked Julie; she was spunky and funny, but her energy could test the patience of a saint. Especially in study hall! Trying to get “Jules” to sit for 45 minutes was like telling an avalanche to stop being annoying. My birthday is in March–decidedly a winter month in Vermont–and the very day I turned 30, Jules bounded up to my desk and said, “Mr. W, Mr. W., did you know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?” I ran my fingers through my hair and replied, “You mean The Beatles?” Said she, “Yes, have you ever heard of them?” When I scooped my jaw from the floor I told her, “Jules I promise to explain this to you tomorrow, but right now I need you to go back to your seat and leave me alone, or I might have to kill you.”

You can put Julie’s question in my box of remembrances of how I fell out of love with Vermont winters. She instantly made me feel like a dinosaur peering into the sky and wondering what those giant rock hurtling toward Earth portended. To add insult to injury, at age 31 I fell prey to WRP.

In 1983, Burlington held its inaugural First Night celebration. It wasn’t unusual for Lake Champlain to freeze over, but that usually didn’t occur in mid-December. The Vermont side of Champlain is usually warmer than the New York side, which lies in the shadow of the High Adirondacks. When it does freeze at Burlington, the winds from New York can sweep across a 12-mile ice sheet. One New Year’s Eve the temperature was well below zero as we marched down Winooski Avenue behind giant Bread and Circus puppets. Even dressed head to toe in insulated clothing it was like a cartoon in which we expected our words to freeze in midair and shatter.

That February we had a massive Friday snow storm in which flakes fell so hard everyone at the high school was sure they were going to send us all home. It didn’t happen and it was a tossup who was more off the rails, the students or the faculty. It took me over an hour to drive the four miles to home. I was crestfallen to see a solid blanket of deep snow in the driveway. Only someone burnt would I attempt what might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I backed up until I could gain traction, gunned the engine, and slid into the drive. Call me Rocket Man.  I came to rest starring at the sky through my windshield with an acre of snow under the car’s frontend. It took hours to shovel it level to the drive and chisel snow from the engine. WRP supremo.

The following winter was the Great Blue Freezie caper. On a subzero morning I got a call from a colleague who lived ten miles north asking if I could come get him as his car wouldn’t start. We almost made it to school before my car halted outside of town where the Lamoille River tumbles over a power dam. I opened the hood, and witnessed a ten-inch column of blue ice coming from the radiator. Yes, friend, my anti-freeze froze. People stop if they see a disabled vehicle because one could die from exposure. We were delivered to school by a kind man in a pickup reeking of rancid oil and roughly as clean.

My last Vermont winter was quite a treat as well. It wasn’t all that cold, but the first snowfall came on October 15. We never got a blizzard, but it snowed a few inches a day through mid-April. Doable? Not really. By March there was nowhere to put the snow! It was the same winter our adventurous tabby Garp got stuck in a tree, but that’s a striped tale/tail for another time.

Moving to Western Mass for grad school was like landing in Miami. My new take on the Green Mountain State is that for six months of the year there’s no better place to be. The other six are called winter and I’m on medical leave.

 

Rob Weir