Calendar Fuzz

As a retiree keeping calendar dates in order is a challenge. Take this past week, December 19 through 23, each day felt like either Friday or Saturday. Of course, that means they felt like a Sunday. Being the week building toward Christmas Day, the daily calendar routine simply seemed off.

Daytime duties are quiet, very few appointments. Even doctor appointments are absent. A run or two to the drug store or grocery store is normal, but even those were done in holiday time. You know, the traffic lights seem to act in synch with bells tinkling in the background. The bits of snow skiffs even appear to dance to elfin music lines. Well, maybe I’m a little too much in the spirit?

Crowds, throngs really, are out and about doing their holiday duties. I’m sure it has something to do with buying gifts for the family Christmas tree, or maybe just a holiday menu item. That seems to be our bent.

At any rate, it is disconcerting to mentally apportion calendar time to specific days of the week when they all seem to be a Friday or Saturday. There is no hurry. There is no consequence if something is not performed this day. There is always time to catch up later.

This year the rhythm of the season was jarred loose with a winter storm warning. The forecasts were dire indeed. Wind chills below -30. Snow piles pondered of over 18 inches. What we actually got was a little snow – maybe 3 inches? – but that was blown hither and yon and didn’t amount to much. The cold was spot on, however. The wind was near forecast as well. So, the windchills have been 35 to 40 below zero! We don’t experience that depth of cold each winter, but we do remember the past plunges.

In those days I was still commuting to downtown Chicago. Walked a mile to the train station, stood on the platform for the train to arrive, then once downtown, I walked 1.5 miles to the campus. In the afternoon this feat was repeated in reverse. That is a 4-hour commute daily including the train ride. The five miles of walking – clogging actually – in the snow and cold was no easy task. Remember the winter of 1978 -79?  That was the winter we totaled 92 inches of snow. The snowpack measured 4 feet in our backyard at the apex of the season. Cold snap one night was -27 with a windchill approaching 100 below. It was so cold the wooden frame of our house snapped, crackled and popped all night. The massive maple trees snapped and popped as well. I had never heard that before. But then, I had never experienced cold that severe.

Somehow, we got through it all including shoveling all that snow. The following year was very hard as well but not quite as cold and snow around 50 inches for the season.

Now, retired, I do not commute. Anywhere. Heck, I don’t even walk anywhere if I don’t feel like it. Weather is something we witness from our warm windows. Now this is what life was supposed to be like all those years of commuting. Ah yes. But then…..

December 26, 2022

 

 

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