We lived for a momentous four years in a house whose back yard was licked every winter by the rising waters of the Tualitan river. That was the place where I dreamed of flying cars, test driving two of them and straining to memorize the pedal layout and dash in hopes that outside the dream they could be made for real. It’s where my mother found police at the door to check on what would make national news had it happened today. It’s where I beat the night terrors at last. There, I prayed more fervently than ever before. I discovered clay, salamanders, deep blue Irises, and made my first wooden bow and arrows. While there I knew my first happy crush, got my first kiss, found a reason to not like daisies, and discovered the long bow. We had a raccoon. I found my first real friend, an excellent fellow who I still admire. I learned to pressure flake obsidian into arrowheads and discovered a technique that put me on the road to competent artistry. So many other important histories happened there!

 

Many many tales will come of my recollections of that place, but today I remember it because of the cold.

 

Just up the road from our house my brothers and I attended grade school. It was within walking distance past the long rough driveway of gravel and broken pipe pieces (there was a clay pit in the field behind our house from which culvert pipes were fired. The broken ones were ours for the taking)

 

Each winter brought a few weeks of numbing cold. Some one at the school invariably opened a faucet on the asphalt play area to create ice that we could play on. Among those who did were always a few fat kids with coats they’d outgrown. Some had bellies whose bare skin was exposed to the biting cold and I always marvelled that they weren’t miserable.

 

My coats never kept me warm. Even the thick ones had certain consistent defects: the air got inside from the bottom and the sleeves. There I was freezing, and those large kids were playing happily with no hint of discomfort, even with skin exposed.

 

Clouds of white breath escaped our mouths and my fingers went numb, it was so cold.

 

We were given white insulated underwear, but it barely improved the situation.

 

Awful as the cold was, there were experiences that could be had no where else but in the middle of it. The winters of 1970 and ’71 for example had silver thaws. We’d get six or more inches of snow, then it would freeze at night. Then the air would warm and melt the surface of the snow. It would rain. Then the temperature would drop low enough to freeze everything.

 

Fields looked like plastic. The white iced surface was dimpled and shiney. It froze hard enough that one could walk and run and slide across it.

 

Ice brought down limbs and trees and threatened the power lines and phones because of the weight. Plows that pushed the crust off the country roads would create a serious hazard anew by lining the shoulder with chards of broken chunks.

 

For kids, it was great fun. School was called off and the safest way to live was to be outside where our mother would not put us to work moving the living room furniture into every possible configuration.

 

By that time, we lived closer into town in the bordering state not far from the interstate. Preparatory to property ownership, we lived there in our second trailer court experience. There I oil painted for the first time, discovered a love of vocabulary (bolstered by a cache of Readers Digest Magazines), and worked very hard at summer jobs and handyman tasks for the owner of the court.

 

By and by the land was ready for us and my father had our Marlette single wide hauled up to a wooded heaven to keep us under a roof while he built a real house there.

 

Still disliking the cold, I fared better there. My coats were improved at keeping the discomfort at bay and I began to wear woodsy attire including the popular shoe of the day, clodstompers.

 

When snow fell and school was shut down, the experience of getting out in the snow took on a spiritual beauty. All was calm. I donned my mackinaw, gloves, stocking hat, and mink oiled clodstompers and hiked through the snowed in forests to destinations such as Bald Mountain upon whose peak I could experience seriously divergent views of the muted world below.

 

One one side of the peak was solid country. Soft, peaceful, with a few barking dogs afar.  On the other side, only steps away toward the south, was a broad view of the descent toward Portland and the Columbia River, visible from twenty or more miles distant. It was bright and riddled with signs of civilization.

 

In the snow I first hunted deer, finally bringing the bead of my shotgun with 50mm slugs onto the shoulder of one no further away than half a basket ball court. I dropped the sight to the desired target and squeazed the trigger. When I picked myself out of the snow, the deer was gone. While checking to see if there was a hit, I plunged a boot into an unseen creek, blanketed over by snow on the foliage that grew out of it.

 

I went home to the woodstove and dry socks. I never hunted again.

 

Around that time Jim and I decided to sled the steep road that led to my house. Of course we barely survived.

 

During the last years of High School I discovered that the cold also brought recreational free time best spent drawing and painting, thanks to snow days.

 

I still savor the deepest winter for painting because the house is warm and people are busy elsewhere. I’m left alone to create : )

 

The coldest weather I experienced was too-the-bone fifty degrees in winter Mississippi. Not long after that I resided in Montana where ten degrees below zero didn’t feel as cold.

 

It was there that I traversed the mountains many times during winter with no chains, no supplies, and no snow tires. I didn’t know.

 

One night I saw the familiar traffic caterpiller approaching. A set of high headlamps led a long line of car headlamps belonging to the unfortunate souls who got caught behind a semi.

 

My car broke traction and began to spin round and round with all four tires on the ice, coming within ten feet of the truck before stopping on a flat shoulder. I rolled down the windows and heard a river far below. I’d have gone unfound till summer.

 

The cold plays with the optics of one’s eye. For many years I went walking in the snowy cold so that I could become familiar with the beauties associated with the visual artifacts of the lights and stars.

As much as I hated cold, I grew more and more appreciative of what could be done during the bouts of winter.

 

The best swords have two blades. It just got better over time, and it got more dangerous.

 

My greatest peril in a car was on the road, going to and returning from Idaho in deep winter. One of those times, the ice overtook my windscreen during a white out where my only hope was to follow the fading red of someones tail lamps.

 

I turned the heat on high and directed all the air to the wind shield of that Montero. Then I rolled down the side window and started up the wipers so I could reach the blade on the drivers side. I snapped it against the glass several times to remove buildup. There was no opportunity to safely stop. Just before the fist sized clear spot on the screen would have closed up, the ice began to melt away because of the heat inside, the washer fluid outside, and the wipers. The rest of the drive through the mountains was downright harrowing.

 

When I had children at home, the cold brought danger and yet I was fortunate to have a knack for driving well on snow and ice. I would go pick up my wife where she worked or prepare her car for driving by chipping the ice off the glass with a hatchet. It’s easier than it sounds.

 

I once drove across town in a Chevette with bald tires over sheet ice.

 

The trick is simple: no sudden moves. Steady breaking, steady acceleration, ginger stearing, and slow travel will save lives.

 

To this day I look on the cold with mixed feelings. If I can stay home with the furnace ablaze and paint or write, it’s the best of times.

 

Walks through the crystalized outside are magical.

Drives through the flurry of snow flakes, at least in a Miata, are pure joy.

 

And jaunts through the white deep in a capable 4 X 4 are inspiring.

 

But the best times are with beautiful winter outside, and gloriously warm peaceful days safely inside.

Now that I think of it, the cold has shaped a huge part of my experience on this planet.