The Winter Trifecta
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008This morning, as I stepped outside, the sun was shining brightly and it felt like a pretty nice day. I got in my car and turned on the radio. That’s when I heard it was 6 degrees outside. Have I become that desensitized to Chicago’s weather that 6 degrees seems like a nice day?
This winter, the weather has been so bad, that 6 degrees on a windless, sunny day, is in fact, a nice day. At least there is no snow falling, sleet sheeting or wind howling.
There are some people who take pride in enduring this harsh weather, usually referring to it as “Bear Weather” during football season. Call it “Midwestern Tough”,”old school”,”gritty”…..I call it insane.
I have lived here all my life, enduring the ridiculous temperatures (like -83 wind chills) and the enormous snows (3 feet or more). As a kid, snow and really bad weather translated into no school, so I didn’t care back then. As a working adult, there are so many factors which come into play.
I can’t tell my clients that it is too cold to distribute their publications, so out I go into the cold. As I trek across the frozen tundra, I encounter so many salt-induced potholes, I feel like I am in a video game scoring points with each swerved, near miss. Downtown Chicago presents another danger, ice falling from buildings. I am not the most agile guy and even less so when I am carrying a 20 pound bundle of magazines. At least I have avoided any major ice chunks crashing onto my head.
The next news report on the radio snapped me back into reality. More bad weather is coming tonight and lingering through next week. Snow. Sleet. Sub zero temps. The winter trifecta!
As I made my way through the rest of the day, I enjoyed this warm front, all 6 degrees of it. I even rolled down the window for that late afternoon breeze. Heck, it is downright balmy!
-John Wroblewski, distribution specialist
