I've Been Cold Before

This must be why folks move to Arizona.

For a few days now the temperature has hovered between barely survivable and colder-than-anyone-remembers.

The minus 30 something I woke to this morning was a rerun of yesterday’s bitter cold. It’s been even colder in other parts of the state and I take solace in that. It’s seldom the case.

Living on the Hi-line I’ve grown accustomed to the cold. I dress for it, donning long johns in October and not taking them off until spring, which up here means May. By then they usually need a wash.

What I suspect makes this current spate of unreasonably cold weather so hard to take is the balmy weather that preceded it. I was still frolicking in nothing but a thong until a week ago. Now I can’t put on enough clothes.

Walking to the office this morning because my truck wouldn’t start, I put my glasses in my pocket to keep them from fogging up. Instead, my eyes began to freeze shut.

I worried I wouldn’t make it, and fall to the ground before I got inside, freezing into a drifted-over lump in the snow like those climbers who perish on Everest.

At least there was no wind to add to the unpleasantries.

Having spent much of my life outdoors I’ve been cold before. A night spent huddled by the fire in a teepee at hunting camp after my sleeping bag was lost in a pack-horse wreck comes to mind.

It must have been cold because I remember it, although I’m sure it wasn’t this cold. But I was younger, tougher, and stupider so it might have been.

Now I’m at the point where I can’t recall ever being warm. I vaguely remember standing in the lake last summer, water up to my chin, in an effort to cool off on a 107-degree day.

However, I fear those recollections may be the result of hypothermia as the chill sets in and hallucinations begin.

The forecast calls for moderating temperatures over the next couple months. I look forward to that. Even 10 degrees will feel good after waking to -38.

I used to joke that Montana’s severe weather kept out the riff-raff. That’s not true anymore. They’re simply in Arizona for the winter.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]