Jan 19, 2024 4 min read

The coldest I’ve ever been was the day the temperature dropped way below zero in Evanston, Ill. It was the winter of 1983, when I was a student at Northwestern University.

That morning I decided to leave my little dorm room and walk outside to the end of the sidewalk to get a newspaper from the box. Although I did not know the temperature just then, I knew it would be cold so I bundled up, adding enough layers to my torso to make my silhouette look like something in the ice cream cone family.

As I opened the lobby door, the wind pushed me inside. I pushed back and stepped outside and began the 50 steps to the newspaper box. Five steps into this trek, I knew what I would be up against: at step six my knees felt the wind and I knew I should have worn two pairs of pants. At step 10, the tears in my eyeballs froze. Step 15 my lungs seized up.

I was a third of the way there. Through squinted eyes, I could see the box that held the Sun-Times, the wind jostling the glass door. How badly did I want to read? Was it worth frostbitten lips to get there? How would I get a coin out of my pocket and into the box without removing my puffy mitten?

And even if I’d accomplished those things, I’d still have that long walk back to the building. If I would go all Popsicle, who would come and rescue me from the snowbank? No sane person was out on the streets.

I’m reminded of that this week as the Western Pennsylvania January turned mean. The temperatures never reached “Lake Michigan” cold, as it did the winter I was there, but it was miserable around here.

Up here on Mt. Crumpit, it’s always windy. The atmospheric conditions that bring spectacular pink sunrises can also make my daily walks rather harsh. During the past week’s deep freeze, Smoothie balked at walking down the block to the dog park, an objection more about the snow than the temperature. I cleared a patch in the yard so he’d have grass underfoot, but he turned his nose up at that. Eventually we made our way down to the dog park, where he wandered around for long minutes, trying to find a spot.

“Hurry up,” I said, the wind blowing ice flakes at my face.

Our region has been lucky the past few years. We haven’t had much snow (yay), and we’ve been spared really cold winters. A high school friend and I were remembering our senior year at Ringgold, when a cold snap shut down school for more than a week. She and I decided it was a nice break, and a good memory.

I’ll be happy when the warm-up happens next week, but it looks like we’ll have to deal with more snow before then. As I wrote the first sentences of this column, I was reminded that my dorm room at Northwestern had windows that didn’t close all the way. My parents sent me an electric blanket, which got me through some brutal days.

The coldest was that day I went out for the newspaper. I think it was 15 below, but the wind made it worse. Halfway to the box, I lost my nerve. To continue on would risk losing my nose and possibly my eyeballs. I turned around and began the long, treacherous journey back to the building, the wind pushing against me.

I never got the newspaper that day. I hope never again to be so memorably cold.