Baby, it’s cold outside! Shoulder itching cold. Horse blanket cold. International Falls, Minnesota cold. And we have to go out in it and do things. It’s an outrage! Back in the day, when you moved to Florida, you used to get an official document that promised serene seas, temperate climes and free newspapers on any day the sun didn’t appear. Arthur Godfrey started a television show in Miami Beach and told everybody about it. Frozen northerners came down in droves, building condos which blocked out the sun. But then some curious things started happening on the way to Edenic bliss. First, hordes of very toothy sharks took up residence just off the east coast. Then the newspapers went out of business. And now it’s almost snowing. All things considered, we might as well be in Philadelphia.
We’re not sissies. We trekked two miles to high school on minus-zero days with howling winds and blowing snow. We endured pulsing earlobes, frozen nose hair, eyelashes that stuck together, fingers and toes on the verge of frostbite, dagger-like icicles falling all around us. And that was on the good days. We paid our dues with backbreaking shovels, dead car batteries, invisible black ice and snowballs between the eyes. We fell through thin ice into freezing water, crashed sleds into trees and were occasionally trapped in our cumbersome snowsuits until help arrived. We thought all that was over when we got to the lovely Sunshine State. Then we look outside one frosty morning and discover to our horror that it’s 25 abominable degrees. Where do we sign up for the boat to Jamaica?
What Do They Do On A Snowy Night In Fargo?
The UHaul Company, which knows about these things, tells us that Ocala, Florida is the fastest-growing municipality in the country. The Sunshine State actually has 8 of the top 10 growth cities and 12 of the top 25, including Clermont, for crying out loud. Blame national television, where every night in January bad-weather fanatics dart about the screen yammering about the brutal cold everywhere north of the Florida-Georgia line and showing disturbing videos of giant semis sliding down the highway into tiny donut shops. Ever wonder what happens when you get stuck in the middle of one of those 79-car pileups? Do you just get out of your Buick, cross over the median and start hitchhiking the other way? Does Ken Kesey show up in his magic bus and take you to the nearest commune? What happens to your car and all the stuff inside? Does the state department of transportation gather everything up for a giant yard sale? Is it time to call the ubiquitous Dan Newlin? Inquiring minds want to know.
What if you live in Fargo? Do you just stay home all the time and whittle? No, you don’t. You go off to watch the cardboard sled races, play snow golf or ice-fish. And consider this; Fargo is Canada’s toasty Caribbean area. Everyplace in the country is north of Fargo. Think about that the next time you get annoyed with Captain Trumpy and start looking for a new home. A good guideline to follow: stay away from places where hockey is the national sport.
If Fargo is freezing and Canada is worse, what’s north of Canada? That would be Alaska, where everyone wears mittens, keeps sled dogs and eats blubber. An Alaskan’s idea of a good time is snowshoeing across the tundra to the big Fur Rondy in Anchorage and participating in the Frostbite Footrace, then yukking it up with the mushers over at Bubba’s Blubberburgers. Anchorage, however, is a day at the beach compared to Barrow.
Barrow is not the absolute coldest place in Alaska for record lows, but it is generally considered the coldest inhabited place due to its Arctic location. It is, in fact, so cold in Barrow that they had to change the town’s name because nobody would go to Barrow anymore. So now it’s called Utquiagvik, which means “place where fingernails fall off” in the native Inupiag language. Even so, the population has increased since the name change and Utquiagvik is now the 12th most populated city in Alaska. Unfortunately, the Barrow Whalers athletics teams’ nickname was lost in the transition and now they are the the Utquiagvik Utopians, a misnomer if ever there was one. The locals pass the time taking selfies at the iconic Whale Bone Arch, running from polar bears and betting on whose big toes will fall off first when they dip them in the Arctic Ocean. On the positive side, Barrow’s rampaging Northern Lights are to die for. Literally.
We’re Number 1!
The coldest place on Earth where anyone actually lives is Oymyakon, Russia, with temperatures as low as -96 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest place of any consequence is Yakutsk, Siberia, home to 355,500 crazy fools, where cars are left running for hours to keep the fuel from freezing and people wear fur-lined underwear. The air is cold enough to numb exposed skin in no time. “Just dress warmly, in layers, like a cabbage,” the residents tell you.
Yakutsk is shrouded in “ice fog” during the winter, a phenomenon which occurs when the air is so cold that hot air from houses, etc., cannot rise. Incoming visitors are advised not to walk in the streets when the temperature falls below minus 40. And you wonder why vodka is the national drink?
That’s What Happiness Is…
Are the people in Utquiagvik and Yakutsk less happy in their surroundings than the rest of us? Not necessarily. In the former, the pay from the oil industry is good, the landscape is pristine and the Jehovah’s Witnesses almost never come trotting down your driveway. In the latter, you can explore underground ice tunnels, visit the world’s only Mammoth Museum or warm your frozen mitts over a tasty bowl of salamat.
The pilgrim climbs to the snowy mountaintop, finds his guru and asks the ultimate question: “Oh anointed one, how can I find happiness in these miserable conditions? I have sweltered in the suffocating jungles of the Amazon, been chastened by the sobering snows of Kilimanjaro, soaked to the skin in dreary Mawsynram, dried to the bone in the Sahara. I have searched for happiness high and low, in sickness and in health, through earthquakes and forest fires and avalanches and floods. Once, in a horrendous tornado, I was blown from Anadarko to Wichita, Kansas. Where, oh where does happiness lie?” The smiling wizard rises, points a finger in the air, puts a disc on the turntable and says…
“You put your left foot in…you put your right foot out. You put your right foot in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around…that’s what it’s all about!”
“I describe my pain and you mock me?” gripes the pilgrim.
“Hey, don’t knock it if you ain’t tried it,” smiles the wizard.
“Happiness!” says the guru. “Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Some like it in the pot nine days old. Happiness has nothing to do with the elements, it’s a gadfly. Many people spend their whole lives waiting for it to arrive, then fail to recognize it when it waves at them from a second-story window. After all, it could be a mirage. ‘And anyway, it looks a little hard to reach,’ says Moe. ‘That’s why they have stairs,’ says Joe.”
The guru greets a second customer.
“I believe in yesterday,” smiles Innocentia of Sunnybrook Farm. “All my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
“As do we all, little one. But yesterday is far away and those troubles often fade in the rear-view mirror…look smaller tomorrow than they do today. You can’t build a wall around yesterday, or today, for that matter. You have to live in the now, knowing all the while that present circumstances will inevitably change but you still hold the steering wheel.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Charlie Brown once said, ‘Ten thousand years from now, who’ll know the difference.’ Cher said it better: ‘If it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter.’
Happiness doesn’t just appear from a vacuum. There are no genies popping out of magic lamps these days. You have to create your own happiness…work joy-inducing moments into your daily routine. Here are a few things that push the H-button for people you may know:”
Charles Schulz—“Happiness is a warm puppy.”
Georgio Armani---“There is nothing without love. No money, no power. Love is very important. When you wake up in the morning, you need to know that somebody else is waking up thinking of you.”
Freedrich Nietzsche---“The secret is to live dangerously! Build your cities on Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas!”
Booker T. Washington---“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
Mahatma Gandhi---“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt---“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”
William James---“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Dalai Lama---“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson---“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Happiness. Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot nine days old…whether they’re in Oahu or Yukutsk or the Salt Caves of Atacama. You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between. If all else fails, try bacon.
 |
| Utquiagvik, nee Barrow. Anyone for a little croquet? |
That’s all, folks…
