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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

The wind blew another partridge out of a pear tree.

Winter has trouble doing the right thing.

It’s not the snow that gets you when you live in a snow globe. It’s the shaking like a chilly Chihuahua that happens before the snow falls.

My wife and I gathered around the light bulb for warmth and read about global warming on a night as cold as a cast iron commode with wind gusts up to the speed of light. Winter has a license to chill.

Minnesotans might deny it, but most of them have wondered, “Why did they have to put Minnesota here?”

It’s winter when snow becomes the new normal, and out-of-state visitors wear so much clothing that they look as if they’re about to turn into butterflies.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall. What will the weather be after the fall? We get winter every year, and it’s not subject to calendar restraints. Some winters have more teeth than others, and the number of winters we get varies each year.

Of all the 87 counties in Minnesota, I live in one of them. Each year, I put up a “Snow free to a good home” sign. It’s usually replaced by a “Snow free to any home” billboard.

As a young fellow, I drove rust buckets. Each would have been a splendid car if I’d been an 11-year-old boy who loved to have any vehicle. The cars were old, and often the tires were older than the car. Lacking money but still wanting to drive, I traveled on bald tires. I don’t recommend that. Now I pretend I’m driving on those bald tires when inclement weather catches me on the road.

It slows me and causes me to drive cautiously.

Blizzards of my youth provide remarkable memories. I was a young Shackleton, rolling snow into balls like I was a large dung beetle wearing a parka. I was closer to the snow then. I’ve grown taller and moved away from the snow. Waist-deep snow with drifts as hard as marble didn’t mean there would be no school. I’d learned in school that settlers had flocked from all over the country when cold was discovered in Minnesota. It was the biggest cold strike since one in western Wisconsin. It was called the Cold Rush, and many people became rich by selling long underwear and wool socks. Carpetbags carried more wool than a sheep ranch. Blanket sales boomed when the new Minnesotans learned the wind chill factor meant that 5 degrees below zero required 6 inches of blankets.

Winter wasn’t good at hiding and usually arrived in the middle of a school bus ride. As long as the school building remained visible through the snow, school was never canceled. The unfairness of snow day policies led to a pile of petty grievances that kept the school’s counselor busy.

Minnesota nice might be a real thing, but Minnesota ice is definitely a real thing. Please don’t fall for ice; it’s a scam. Ice should come in colors. A fellow I know slipped on the ice and banged his knee. He put ice on it. The curious combination of cause and cure led him to search for a cure for winter in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. He has become a card-carrying Winter Texan who calls home to hear the sounds of a snowplow. It’s not just him. Others have determined that it’s worth pulling up stakes and moving south to keep from being swept away by a roving glacier. They cower in warmer temperatures until the chance of being up to their ears in the snow back home has lessened. John Steinbeck tried to reason with them by writing, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness,” but to no avail.

I’m tethered to the homeplace in winter, with only brief excursions away. My Fitbit should give me extra steps for walking uphill both ways through the deep snow.

Mittens offer warmth in the cold. If you like gloves better than mittens, well, I’m not one to point fingers. Spring will ride in like the cavalry after enough winter gloves and mittens have been lost. By then, winter will need a vacation.

Al Batt’s column appears in the Tribune every Wednesday.