Volume 44 - No. 02
January 09, 2014
by Kent Ballard
Editor’s Note: A lot of folks grew up in the midwest and/or the east coast area. They know, or remember, what cold is like.
Most of us who have moved to California remember the biting cold winters of our younger years. Those who experienced it, remember. Those who never have been truly cold . . . well, you had to be there.
Our Kent Ballard takes you there vicariously as he describes in fine fashion just what it’s like to experience ... cold: I want Spring.
I've been cold. And I learned that it can't kill you more than once. But it can sure as hell make you wonder if death isn't more comfortable than losing all feeling in your extremities, even after the cold has disappeared and the sheer pain that replaces it fades away.
When I was a very young man I read about explorers in the Antarctic. They said when they would spit, their saliva would freeze before it hit the ground. During the terrible Blizzard of '78, when it was colder in Indianapolis than it was in mid-winter Anchorage, Alaska, all regular TV broadcasting in those pre-cable days was suspended and every TV channel was giving news reports, repeating that everything--and I mean EVERYTHING--was closed, and for the love of God not to venture outside for any reason. This, they said, was something that we Hoosiers were not accustomed to. This wasn't just an extraordinarily cold snap. This was "killing cold," in the serious words of one weatherman.
Another said, looking seriously into the camera, to remain in shelter wherever you were. I'll never forget his warning: "Death is walking the streets right now. You cannot and will not survive more than a few The Paper - 760.747.7119
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minutes outside. This is NOT Indiana weather. This is NOT anything your parents or even grandparents ever had to face. This is unique since weather records have been kept, and as far as we can research, even before that."
I was young, cocky, strong, and stupid. But--I had been smart enough that the year before, I
installed a huge wood-burning stove in my home. I still had strong ties to the rural people I had grown up with far outside of Indy, and there were plenty of old friends who allowed me to cut their dead trees up for firewood. I had probably two tons of it outside, wrapped in blowing and flapping tarps. The house furnace was run-
Ice Cold
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ning at maximum capacity, and the rooms were still cool-and getting colder. I went to our bedroom, peeled off my clothes down to my tee shirt and skivvies, and began to redress. Drawers were opened. Closets were dug around in. My cold-weather hunting gear came out...all of it. Two complete sets of long thermal underwear went on. Three