A Global Cooling Story

The recent cold snap engulfing the nation, along with the continuing global warming fraud reminds me of the days when that kind of talk would have had you labeled some kind of loon. What do you know, that still applies. The problem now is that those loons are in a position to use their insanity to justify emptying your wallet. This would be my response to global warming alarmists.

It was 1981, and playoff time in the NFL. We had been watching the Cincinnati Bengals defeat the San Diego Chargers in what became the coldest game in NFL history. The temperature was -59 with the wind chill in Cincinnati that day. A warm spell in compared to where we were in Illinois. The wind chill there was at an unreal -80, and even safely inside a house, it was cold. We were in a converted basement, and the cold just came through the walls. All we had was a space heater to keep us warm down there. If you’re wearing a jacket indoors, it’s cold.

Well, the beer flowed, and the cigarettes burned that afternoon, and by the end of the game, everybody was out of smokes. Young, drunk and foolish, I decided I would walk down a half block to the bar on the corner and grab a pack of smokes. No problem. I would just wear two jackets (one of those was a hooded sweat shirt), a beanie, some gloves, wrap a scarf around my mouth, and hurry down to the corner. Remember, there was a wind chill. It was windy. I bundled up and headed out.

Big mistake. Anybody who lives in cold weather knows this phenomenon. The air was so cold, that it literally took my breath away. Even when I recovered from the initial blast, it was still hard to breath. Another thing was the pain. The cold was actually painful, and those two jackets seemingly did nothing to stop the cold. Imagine how effective a knit beanie was. It goes without saying I was woefully under dressed.

It seemed like miles to the bar, even though it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards, and I thought that if I collapsed on the street, nobody would see me, and they would have to thaw me out days later. Nobody was on the street except…me. I finally made it to the bar, but by then, I was so frozen, my body was starting to shut down. I had never felt like that before. When I walked in (I barely managed to even open the door), there were surprisingly, several customers, regulars no doubt inside. All eyes were on me when I walked in. Of course, the chances of someone coming in off the street that day had to be a shocker. On any other day, they would have thrown me out of there because I was under 21, but that day, they didn’t say anything. I stood there for a few minutes, trying to get reoriented. I felt like I was burned head to toe, and it was hard and painful to move. Do you know that burning feeling I’m talking about? This was extreme.

I finally shuffled up to the bar.
“Pack of Marlboro,” I managed to mumble. The bartender put the pack of reds on the bar, looking at my eyes as if to see if I was all right. I don’t know what I must have looked like. I know what I felt like though.

My fingers screamed with pain as I reached into my back pocket for my wallet. The pocked scraping my frozen hands hurt bad. I managed to get my wallet out, but my fingers were still stiff and immobile, even after several minutes in the warm bar. I couldn’t pull out the $1.10 (yes, a buck-ten) for the cigarettes; my fingers couldn’t sort the money, so I laid all the money in my wallet on the bar. The guy took a couple of bucks and gave me change. I left the change. I couldn’t pick it up and get it in my pocket.

I stayed there for a little while trying to get warm, and eventually my body started to recover. I still had to get home though. Eventually, I left and made my was back. It was just as bad on the way home as it was going to the bar. I made it though. By then, my head was spinning, by ears were wringing, and…that painful burning feeling was excruciating. Looking back, I now realized I could have died that day. I don’t know how those football players do it, but I was shutting down.

I survived, but it was a stupid move. If you’re that hard up for a smoke, then pull a butt out of the trash. It certainly wasn’t worth the trip, and I would never do it again. If I had a choice of being too warm or too cold, I’ll take too warm any day. You can always cool off, but it’s very difficult to get warm if you’re chilled to the bone. Global warming my ass. That kind of weather happens all the time. I faced the beast and I’m still standing though. Of course I live in California now, where 50 degrees is considered a cold snap. I can handle that. It always gives me a laugh when my co-workers talk about how cold it is on a particular day. You want cold? I’ll tell you about cold…