Daughter Kim posted a piece on FB about winter in Arkansas which made me snort coffee thru my nose, but also brought back personal memories of wintertime in the Wonder State.
Like the time I crawled up under the Old House with an acetylene torch and tried to thaw the water pipes. It didn't work and by the grace of God it was so cold that even wood wouldn't burn and so I didn't set the house on fire.
As to sledding, in Phillips Co. old truck hoods pulled behind a pickup were a favorite for all kinds of thrills and spills, which included barbed wire fences and dredge ditches, all at 30 m.p.h.
My favorite of these was the time when Doug Turner, Boone, Rodney and myself decided it would be fun to "ice ski" (in Arkansas what began as a snowstorm would turn into an ice storm as often as not).
We took the fins off a pair of water skis And headed for Ray Dawson's airstrip right down the road in Doug's Jeep. Another of God's mercies is that 20 was all the speed the Jeep could muster on the ice without starting to move sideways because ice hurts when you fall on it. Also the most insignificant tuft of grass becomes a hazard to navigation when when frozen.
We found out:
that water skis cannot be steered nearly so well on ice as on water,
that when you fall, tuck and roll is the best technique to avoid permanent injury,
that since brain damage was obviously required to engage in these activities, it would not be a factor should one land on one's head.
I also learned during these winters that a "spinout" on ice is a whole different thing than one on wet pavement and there is no such thing as "corrective steering.
As to the "second winter" around Easter, they have those here in Tennessee as well. In fact I recall one year during Antioch Church's Passion Play as the only time Jesus ever wore socks on the cross.
Personally I find winter unpleasant wherever I find it and every year about this time, I begin to wonder if I will ever be warm again. I can only be thankful for these memories which warm my heart if not my fingers and toes.
I'm holding out for March.
