Winter's Benign, But Only For A Bit

Wednesday, February 3, was the kind of day to savor, to be outside. To wish I was 10 again.

Cold? Depends on where you're from. If you've been raised in Milwaukee or thereabouts, it's oddly and unendingly nice: Maybe a degree or two above freezing.

Sunny, too. Rare for January and early February, or at least it used to be. There have been far too many quiet, even partly sunny days the past few winters for people not to regard it as climate change. Winters used to have quite the ferocity, especially to this point: Massive snowstorms and then frigid blasts from somewhere in hellish Canada, not nice Canada, which relieved the awful humidity in August. If it's winter, I'll take sunny and 35. Almost balmy.

We've had major, extended, unknown Indian summer (which is, in fact, based on their own ferociousness) in November, when more often than not we'd already be buried with the white stuff. Yes, it was wonderful, the same way the seashore suddenly becomes waveless before a tsunami: You suspend belief for a while, knowing without precision but for certain that it isn't going to last.

Cloudy, too: nothing so dreary as trying to get through sub-freezing cold with a canopy hanging down so close you can just about jump to touch it. Today's clouds, which caught up after the sun stopped by, were white, fluffy, looked delightfully temporary and had spots of blue sprinkled between them, with small gaps that you could get a 9-iron through if you only had the loft. It was mostly cloudy, sure, but not in a way that could make your attitude match it.

I walk, weather permitting, to keep my heart in reasonable shape. I went southward, then eastward, bending toward the big pond that is Lake Michigan. Any snowstorm coming from that direction picks up extra moisture and laces anything and everything with it. I passed a steep but friendly hill that sledders and snowboarders utilize. Today was that kind of day.

We had a dumping Saturday night into Sunday, where hot chocolate added to peppermint schnapps seemed to be the order as you watched it snow sideways. Then the plows had to come and push it into places nobody wanted, but nobody could figure out how to otherwise arrange it.

Driveway owners dread such times; for days, even weeks, the plows come and give you new work, backbreaking work, endlessly throwing that crap into some other pile that needed to be dealt with, but not just now. Even if you could have fun with snow, knew how to do it, you still had to get the car into the street and there was no way around it: it was either get the car stuck uselessly just feet away from freedom or dig in, and out, and through, seemingly never getting quite wide enough.

I remember doing that at our place in Grafton when I was a kid and we had not only a long driveway, but a semi-circular artery that made it three times as long as everybody else's. It seemed endless, especially if we were told to start before the snowing had ended. Then you'd get mad, in which case you'd shovel as fast as your back could handle it, which did you some good but not nearly enough, especially if throwing the snow into the wind was pointless. It drifted, too, adding to the challenge. It was like sticking your hand into a bucket of water and swirling it around; it seemed to make a difference but was nothing more than displacement.

Some in the city of Milwaukee were already parked in the street and days later, the plows have shoved it all so high and it has caked so roughly that it defeats you just to look at it. Two-lane streets become one, and you have to be polite if someone enters before you do, even if you don't want to. But such is the hassle of The Time of Dirty Snow, when it's no longer flowing and picturesque and just another burden.

But if you could, you got out the saucers and sleds and found the kind of hill that pours into tennis courts at the edge of Lincoln Memorial Drive, just north of one of the Collectivo coffee shops that haven't yet closed. The smart people would wait until Tuesday, even Wednesday.

Why then? Because in the first few hours of Monday after the front had passed, the snow isn't packed down yet. Sleds and saucers get caught up if it's too fluffy, which is its own kind of fun but not conducive to what hills are for--speed. The sun plays its role, too, melting away some of the top stuff but not enough to spoil the effect.

And when kids have been up and down the hill a few times, the snow gets tamped down, just enough to provide a firm underpinning. Then the sledders and saucerers can whiz to the bottom and perform all kinds of tricks, including going and spinning much faster than they were planning. What else can be more fun?

On hiking back to my apartment, I ran into a mom and two kids, headed to the hill. Mom had a huge saucer and a boy had a sled. "It's perfect now," I said, trying to get the kids fired up. "Just perfect." It was three-thirty or so, and surprisingly, not many kids were there. Great timing. A couple hours of that, and dinner would taste real good.

As I finish this, another strong storm is cascading upon us here in Milwaukee. When it passes this time, Jack Frost will arrive and spew his frigidity upon us for a week or so; the cold hell of Canada. Shovelers will have that much more to complain about. I will stay parked out in the back, inside trying to stay warm, and wishing that I was 10 again.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. One day closer to a second shot. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark