A "BLANKET" OF SNOW
I've had a life-long detestation of winter and the cold and especially the snow! This originated from as long as I can remember since my earliest childhood and has lasted to this day. One of my prominent theories for this is that my twin brother, Tim, and I were born in a tropical country and then kidnapped as infants by Gypsies and sold to our present family in Northern Ohio because they needed farm help. They couldn't refuse the "2 for 1" offer of the Gypsies! (They soon found out the reason for the suspiciously low price)! During our whole growing up years, our farmhouse was NEVER warm during the entire winter (see previous story). The reasons for this were it was heated only by 2 fuel oil stoves downstairs and only 1 stove upstairs. The upstairs stove was located in the hall and had to heat our room, our sister's room, and our parents' room. It didn't come near to adequately heating ANY of the rooms! Another reason was that the entire house didn't have one molecule of insulation! Every cold night I would be under a big stack of blankets and would STILL be cold! Of course, it didn't help any that I wet the bed in those early years, which made me even COLDER by morning! On the really cold nights, we could see our breath in our room. One time I had a glass of water on the bookcase beside my bed, and when I woke up the next morning it was frozen solid! (And so was I as a matter of fact)! Our bedroom window faced east and my bed was just a few feet from it (smart move, huh!). There was one memorable time that a big blizzard hit from the east. The underside of the window sill had a gap to the outside (this must have been in the days before caulking was invented), and when I awoke the next morning, shivering as usual, there was a layer of snow on top of my blankets where the snow had blown in from the gap! Since the house also served as a "half way house" for countless wayward mice, I expected to see mice skiing on the lumps I formed under the blankets! You've heard of Mt. Rainer in Washington State, on top of my blankets was Mt. "Derrier". Our house was always infested with mice all winter and even though we had many farm cats that came in and out of the house constantly, they were too lazy to catch any of them. Or more likely, they were afraid to start any trouble since they were GREATLY outnumbered by the mice! Looking back on all of this, I'm SERIOUSLY contemplating after I FINALLY RETIRE ON DECEMBER 21, 2003 AT EXACTLY 11:59.9999 PM, of moving every winter to the Gobi Desert and living in a Sauna! Even if I started to wet the bed every night again in the winter, it would just turn to steam and be warmer yet!
TO RETURN TO THE DIRECTORY, CLICK ON THE WAY I USED TO LOOK GETTING UP EVERY WINTER MORNING AS A KID!!!!
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