My Toughest Winter (So Far)

If I had to choose which of my 62 Winters were the toughest, I pick 2003/'04, and not have to give it much thought.  It was my first (and only) winter in Spokane, WA, and I was one year past a stroke, still finding out about lingering after-effects of the stroke, and got rudely introduced to the one I hate the most... I can no longer tolerate real cold conditions.  Not that Eastern Washington was all that cold, but it was for this California-raised boy.

My physical reaction to cold is difficult to explain, because "normal" people don't go through this.  It's like muscle contractions that go through my entire right side, and then don't go away.  I begin to walk funny; I could do a decent "Chester" (from "Gunsmoke," a Dennis Weaver character who had a limp.  OK, it's dated, but valid.) impression.  OK, in today's terms... Captain Barbosa on a peg leg?  Someone with palsey?  I run like Charles Barkley hits golf balls.

There, I've finally said it.  I think everyone who knows the name "Charles Barkley" know that he is a terrible golfer with a herkey-jerkey golf swing.  That's the way I run.  It bothers me, because when I have to hurry in the cold, people start looking at me like I'm an escapee from a day program, any time it gets below freezing.  I gimp-up a little at 40-degrees, but at freezing or below, I am quite a sight.  That Winter, it never got above 35-degrees, was frequently in the "minus-" category, and on one memorable January morning in 2004, I left for work in 24-below.

That wasn't the only problem...  I suffer from a Seasonally Affective Disorder; I get a little wierd from a lack of sunlight.   For nine months of the year, Spokane was a great place; for three months it was pretty horrid.  Add to the crippling nature of the cold, the fact that it was dark when I left at 5:30 in the morning, and dark when I left for home at 3:30 in the afternoon.  From mid-November until April what little sunlight we got was filtered through a depressing gray overcast.  We left on Winter's Day 2004, it had been cloudy for almost two months, and my solar batteries were pretty low.  We came down to the Colombia River, heading into Oregon on our way back to Vacaville, and the clouds stopped at the river.  On the Oregon side there was bright sunlight and scattered clouds; on the Washington side, gray, grayer, and more grayer.  Perhaps an omen?