If you blinked you just might have missed it. That’s a little exaggerated, but if you hibernated in bed all day Monday, then you definitely missed it. I’m referring to our glimpse of winter that came and went through Polk County earlier this week. After a strange winter that has seen mild to warm temperatures, occasional needs for a jacket and rarely a coat, and hardly a threat of any snow, it was nice that we at least saw something that resembled winter while it was in fact still the winter season.
When faced with the random questions of “would you rather be hot or cold?”, my answer would honestly be that I’d rather be comfortable. But if I had to choose, then I’m one of the people who would rather be cold than hot. Now I’m not a fan of extreme cold or suffocating heat, but in general I’d rather be cold than hot. When conditions are cold, you can keep adding layers of clothing, or keep piling on the blankets until you find a level of comfort and warmth. When conditions are hot, there’s really only so much of your clothing you can take off, and taking a dip in the pool or river is a temporary relief from the angry heat, so it seems to me that heat is harder to get away from.
I’m in the fan club of preferring chilly conditions in my bedroom when sleeping at night, and am not a stranger to having a fan on during the sub-freezing nights of the winter. I call that “good sleeping weather”. If it’s 18 degrees outside, I’d still like to have a fan going, but just throw another blanket or two on the bed to balance out the chill. Crazy? I think not.
So coming back full circle, I was happy to have at least a few days of cold weather, coincidently arriving just in time for the Polar Bear Plunge this past Saturday. Winter had been mild for several weeks, but almost on schedule, the temperatures dropped just in time to give the participants of the Plunge a true experience. I say if you’re going to do it, then do it right. Now of course I say that because I was not a participant in the Plunge, but rather was a bundled up spectator on the sidelines taking pictures.
I know for a fact that everybody was freezing, and that was just the people watching who were wrapped up in coats and blankets. As for the people hardly dressed and diving into the 44-degree water, those people were more in the numb category. Once the last group splashed around in the lake and came rushing out, the who scene just dispersed as people bolted for their cars and heaters. When I got back to my car and peeled my gloves off, my hands were in pain from the cold cutting through. Knowing how cold I was, I immediately issued a Tip of the Hat for everyone who was daring enough to take the plunge. Driving back home with my heater cranked up, I thought about the insanity and pain involved with jumping in a lake during winter, and I thought to myself “pain is temporary, but memories last forever”. Once again, I was able to think that because I was not the one jumping into the lake.
With a cold weekend, followed up by some snow and icy conditions Monday, we actually got a piece of a winter, which I was glad to see. While a lot of folks will say how much they like a mild winter, it would be a little strange if late March rolled around and we had gotten not even a flake of snow or more than a couple days of freezing weather. I think we need a little snow and freezing weather just to assure us that we actually had a winter season. Plus, snow pictures always make for some good content for filling the newspaper with, too.
While we don’t know if we’ll see any more “winter” this winter, at least it strolled through town once. The kids had their snow day, everybody had that moment of waking up and looking outside at white conditions, and anything involving the weather gives us something to talk about when there’s nothing else to talk about.
Being cold every now and then makes you appreciate simple things like coats, gloves, blankets, and heaters. Just like we need a few bad days every now and then to make us appreciate the good days, we need to have a few cold days to make us appreciate the “spring” days when they get here.
