Close to Nowhere

Listening to the weather forecasts last weekend made me really sad. The weatherman said that with the heat index, by the end of the week, it was going to feel like between 105-110.

I don’t do extremes. I can’t stand the hot, hot heat and I can’t stand the cold. I often wish that spring and fall were longer seasons around here. It seems to me like we go from extreme cold to extreme heat and back again with about a week of great weather in between.

I’ve been trying to remember the coldest I’ve ever been. It seems like this is going to be a good week to think about snow and ice.

There are so many folks now who don’t remember “The Great Ice Storm” in February 1994.

I didn’t work on Thursdays back then and when I got up and looked out the window that morning, I sat on the couch and thought what a gray, miserable looking day it was, spitting icy rain and so cold.

I remember thinking “I’m going to make some bread in the bread oven.” Just about then the power went out. Living where we live, in the middle of the woods, it’s not unusual for the power to go out. So I wasn’t too worried.

I didn’t realize that it would be three weeks before I could get around to making bread.

All of us who lived through that remember most the sound ­ the ice in the trees breaking and popping. It sounded like a war outside our house.

We have a well and when our electricity goes out, so does our water. People on city water may have only cold water but they have water.

We were driving to our friends’ mother’s house in Holly Springs and filling up gallon jugs with water. We stood in line at the grocery stores for literally hours to get canned anything.

Fortunately, it was more than cold enough outside for milk, etc.

The day Pop called me at work and said the utility trucks were on our road, I sat at my desk and cried. I wanted a hot shower more than anything. I really felt sorry for former editor Walter Webb. He didn’t know what to do, so he said, “Go home.”

I went like a shot! By the time I got home, we had lukewarm water. I got straight in the shower, ignoring everything else. I did spend a good minute thanking God for all the utility workers. They had to have been super exhausted and frozen to the core.

I don’t ever want to be that cold again. On the other hand, I don’t want it to be 110 degrees outside either.