Another day, another trip for the thermometer to negative land. This morning was the ninth day this month that the temperature has been below zero. If it doesn’t warm up pretty soon, we may eventually start ending our sentences with ‘eh?’, like these two fine fictional friends from the Great White North…
To give you a picture of how cold it has been this month, I recently took my little dog, Peyton Hillis Aljancic, for a walk. Before you laugh at his name, we got him back a few years ago, just about the same time that this game came out…
My, how times have changed for both Hillis and our Browns. I will save my thoughts on their current winter time shenanigans for another blog.
Anyhow, Peyton the pup and I covered about two houses when he sat on his hind legs and raised his two front paws to me, as if to say, “I give up!” I picked him up and headed back home. Needless to say, this Alaskan Husky wannabe won’t be on any Iditarod dog sled race teams anytime soon. Maybe I just need to pick him up a set of KITTEN MITTENS…
To be honest, I wasn’t too upset to turn around from our walk and get back to my warm, cozy home. But some people love the cold weather challenge. I was driving around just this morning and saw legendary teacher, coach, and Times Reporter blogger Mike Gunther and his wife jogging. JOGGING! AT ZERO DEGREES! I get cold running on the treadmill in my basement!
My first memory of bitter cold goes back to January 4th, 1981. I remember this specific date, because it what the date that this Kardiac Kid’s 10-year old heart was broken after watching this bitter interception…
I was crushed by my hero, Brian Sipe, making that one mistake. I was comforted, though, by getting the next few days off school during that Artic blast and doing some serious snow-fort building at my buddy Yid’s house.
My father always loved the winter wonderland that Ohio can often be. One winter’s eve, when a cold, powerful blizzard blew into town, he decided to take me on an ‘Artic Walk’. Andy was a high school English teacher, and I think he saw this moment as an opportunity to experience the rugged Alaskan wilderness of the Jack London stories that he often taught in class. So we bundled up and set off on our epic adventure. I can still picture the snow blowing sideways in the streetlights as we trudged along in our long, arduous journey that seemed to go on for hours. I decided to retrace that walk in my car the other day. My odometer almost hit 0.7 miles when I finished the loop. I guess it wasn’t quite the Yukon trail, but I remember becoming a man that night!
Fast forward to January 6, 2014. I remember this date for two reasons: it was the night of the last BCS college football championship, and the temperature got down to 10 below zero. It is often said that every person eventually turns into his parent, and that was true on this cold night. School was already canceled for the next day, so I made an announcement that when the game hit halftime, the Aljancics would be reviving the ‘Artic Walk’ tradition. Surprisingly, the kids were kinda up for it! I got so excited, I called my brother in Indiana to get him and his 3 young sons on their own Artic journey. So when the bands came out for halftime, we layered up Randy-style…
and set off on our own adventure. Unfortunately, our enthusiastic start soon evolved into a ‘Trail of (frozen) Tears’. The young’ens just couldn’t handle the bitter winds of T-County that night. I forgot that for my generation as kids, if it there was snow outside, we were outside playing in it for a while. Board games and Brady Bunch re-runs could only last you so long inside the house.
With 400 TV channels and iPodding and Instagramming and X-Boxing, the current generation has far less training in ‘Artic survival skills’. I will say, though, that my two son’s have toughened up in the last 12 months. They’ve been spending hours on some of these cold winter days playing hoops in the driveway with their buds. Maybe there’s a little peach fuzz is sprouting up on their middle school chins to protect them from the harsh winter winds.
I do have to make a personal confession… when it comes to cold weather, I have become pretty much a fair weather fan. I always remember old people complaining about the cold. I guess I am the old guy now. It probably won’t be long until I start carrying a handkerchief in my pocket.
Let me tell you about my latest bout with of the Old Man Winter. Valentine’s weekend, I took my beautiful bride out for dinner and a movie. And there was only one movie to see this Cupid’s Day, and this one had shades of Scarlet and Gray…
This wasn’t your typicmovie set in New York or some other big city. This was Tuscarawas County! Up on that big movie screen, I saw Tuscora Park! J’N’G Grill! Downtown New Philadelphia! Even a few shots of this legendary newspaper…
And you know what? It was a wonderful movie! The script was well-written, the lead actress did a wonderful job, the great aunt stole the picture, and the cinematography was beautiful. I will even let you in on a little secret if you promise not to tell anyone…
I shed a few tears at the romantic end. DON’T TELL!!!
Hey, even the toughest guys are allowed to cry!
And let me tell you, I was MR. TOUGH GUY that night. When we got to the beautifully refurbished Quaker Cinema, my Beth went inside the theater to wait in the warmth, while I stood in line to buy tickets. Those five minutes in sub-zero temperatures seemed ten times longer than my epic 0.7 mile Artic walk three decades earlier. I came this close to signaling for my wife to come out from the warm bullpen to relieve me. But it was Valentine’s Day, so I decided to be a true romantic and sacrifice myself for my soul mate and true love. I would compare probably this with the end of The Bodyguard when Kevin Costner took a bullet for Whitney Houston…
Maybe Brad Pitt will play me when the do a movie about my romantic, chivalrous gesture of braving the cold!
So make sure you throw an extra log or two on the fire this week. Soon enough, the birds will be chirping and the lawnmowers will be humming. And if you are at a cold and windy baseball game this spring, you just might see me performing another Kevin Costner sacrifice for my lady. That’s if we bring the big enough blanket. If not, Beth is on her own!
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P.S.: Happy 14th birthday to my buddy and oldest son, Drew! Now you can legally cruise on a moped!
Follow the author on twitter: @macaljancic