On Being Cold, by a Native South Texan

It seems that a few of my friends from the north want to give me a hard time about my extravagant reaction over a 32 degree high. Just to further justify my plight, today the high was 15 degrees. (Yes, I know that Chicago has a high of -1 today. I'm just saying, 15 degrees is still darn cold.) And also blow-you-over gusty. When we walked out of the door on the way to church this morning the wind gusted so strong that it blew Ellie back and I swept her up just before she fell. Our church is meeting in a new facility. It’s not heated. They have some of those outside heaters spread throughout the room—the silver pillar things heated by propane. If you are by one of those you are somewhat toasty. But if not, too bad. Your toes—can’t feel them. It was challenging to focus on the worship this morning.

It’s all about where you grew up. I remember the snow of 1984—5th grade. I remember it because it was the only snow during my growing up years in San Antonio. (We were only 3 hours from Mexico, ok?) There might have been other flurry snows, but this was the only one that stayed long enough to play in. Snowmen, snowball fights, snow angels—the whole works. Because it never snows, no one knows how to drive in it and so the whole city shuts down. We had 3 blissful days off from school. And that’s it. That’s the end of my childhood snow career.

Going to school in Fort Worth, TX, much further north from San Antonio—almost to Oklahoma, in fact—we had a few more events. I remember driving home--slowly--in an ice storm...The bitter temps couldn't touch my beloved automobile, an '84 (yes, it was a significant year) Chevy Caprice Classic, adoringly named "Bertha", which was more like an armored tank.

Then there was my first year in China. That was, without question, the coldest year of my life. Because that city was south (and don’t take the word 'south' here to indicate any degree of warmth) of the “heat cut off line” we had no indoor heat. I had a 1 ft. x 2 ft. rotating ‘flame’ heater—(I called it that because it glowed so bright that I couldn’t sleep with it on and it posed a major fire hazard!)—as my constant companion indoors. I despised taking a shower…being squeaky clean was far less desirable than maintaining body heat.

And then there was Singapore. The only times I froze there was because I failed to bring a sweater with me to our office, or our favorite hot pot restaurant, where they blasted the AC full force continually. Jim loved it!

But this morning, even my hairy husband was admitting he hadn’t worn enough layers as we worship was as our typically conservative audience turned a bit more charismatic than normal while we were jumping around to keep warm.

So you northerners who keep your thermostat on 55 and laugh at us weak-willed southerners—do have compassion—and send me some more long johns! :)