This winter weather is making me think of things that are different in some ways, but still much the same. With 12 to 20 inches of snow on the ground, many of us are wishing for the snow to go away. I suppose people everywhere have those feelings in the dead of winter, whether in the 1940s, or the 1980s, or now.
Someone this week brought my wife’s attention to a church sign which carried a definite attitude toward the continuing snow and cold: “Whoever out there is praying for snow, please stop!”
We get ourselves into some ironic positions at times over praying for weather. While the kids are praying for a great and wonderful snow, with icy surfaces for the sleds, someone else is praying for the snow to end and the green of spring to appear.
While the golfer prays for a sunny afternoon, the farmer prays for rain. While some people are praying for clear vacation weather, others are praying for relief from heat and drought.
I came from a farm background, so sometimes I am left with a tension between two opinions on the weather. Sometimes the farmer prays for stormy weather, for rain or for snow, so long as it doesn’t come in violent forms like tornadoes. A farmer’s livelihood depends on the moisture and other benefits that come of “bad weather.” And, if we all want to eat food, which most of us do, we all depend on the watering and the soil fertility and workability that benefit from what we call “bad weather,” the rain and snow and cold temperatures. Even the cold, cold temperatures, as hard as they are for us to bear, help keep crop pestsunder control, and winter’s freezing and thawing have beneficial effects on soil conditions and tillability. So, while part of me wishes the cold and the snow would go away, I’m of a mind to think that we need a certain amount of snow, and cold.
Maybe we shouldn’t lament too much if we get a real winter every 15 years or so.
One of my winter memories of growing up at home on the farm was the regular job of trying to get the car out of the driveway. Yesterday, we were trying to get our car out of the driveway; and today our neighbors across the street had two vehicles spinning wheels on ice on their driveway. On our old ’37 Chevy, we were trying to weigh down the spinning rear wheels. Today our front wheels spin. With 70 years of new technology, we are still trying to get out of the driveway.
Back in the ’40s, we used to have a wintertime ailment called “cabin fever.” I still hear some of the old-timers use that expression, but people today often call it “going stir crazy in the house.” Cabin fever doesn’t so much give you a temperature, it leaves you with a bored restlessness, a tired nervousness, a weary tension; like you are in a slump and about to explode at the same time. The remedy, basically, is to get out of the house; go do some work, go sledding, build a snowman, shovel some snow, put out some hay for the cattle, go putter in the shop, or go fix something. After all the years, and with all our technological developments, we are still getting cabin fever!
We are still trying to get out and about in the winter’s snows and ice. Interestingly, it is our wheeled vehicles that give us the most trouble. On an icy winter morning, if the car hasn’t been under cover, the windshield needs clearing. Actually the whole car needs to be cleared of snow and ice. And, sometimes on a cold winter morning, the car just grunts and balks. Yes, cars today usually start better than cars of the 1940s, but dead batteries are just as dead today as then, and just as inconvenient and frustrating. On the other hand, horses and mules usually didn’t need to be jump started; and while they sometimes had traction problems, those old horseshoes let them pull rather well in the crunchy snow and ice. A few farmers we knew had horse-drawn sleds that they used in winter, rather than wheeled wagons.Those worked pretty well, except that brakes were a problem back then. But, then again, have you tried hitting the brakes on a four-wheel drive SUV on the ice on Patton Street? We have the same problem with brakes that we used to have in the back when.
To pass along some of the wisdom of the ages, “Stay off the brakes when you are on ice!”◊◊◊
Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 02/16/2011