I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT "COLD" IS

When I was in the 6th grade we lived in an old, two story house at 500 Williams Street in Renton, Washington.  There was a coal chute where coal was dropped into the basement.  My job was to make a daily fire in the winter.  I enjoyed making a hot fire, some days getting the house too hot.  My dad took the job away from me once, claiming I'd used up $20 worth of coal in two weeks, too damn much!

My 8th grade year we lived in Payette, Idaho, the "Home of Harmon Killebrew."  It got cold there. One day it was 30 below zero.  I put socks on my hands and a stick of black licorice in my mouth and walked outside.  In a few seconds the licorice snapped in half, part of it falling onto the ground.  I assumed it was because it was so cold.  I got another stick of licorice and it did the same thing.  Slow learner!

The city sent a bulldozer to a vacant lot next to the Junior High School.  The dozer  pushed dirt into a circle fence around a fire hydrant.  The water from the fire hydrant filled the area, then froze into an ice rink that stayed frozen all winter.

We eventually moved back to Kent, Washington, just across a field with power lines.  All of the Douglas Fir trees had been cut down to make room for the power lines, leaving only stumps.  It was my job to make a fire in the fireplace every winter day.  The bark from the stumps made a great fire.

Beyond the power lines was a church we attended.  I was given the job of turning on the furnace on meeting days.  To get the building warm enough for services on winter days, that meant turning it on as soon as I got out of school.

One day, the responsibility slipped my mind until about an hour before church.  Horrified, I ran across the field with power lines overhead to turn on the furnace.

At church that night the temperature inside was in the 40's.  Everyone in the congregation kept their winter coats on.  

I ran up to the preacher and told him how I had messed up.

"What time did you turn it on?" he asked.

"About 5 o'clock," I answered.

"Don't let it happen again," he admonished.

At 16, my dad and I got into an argument and I left home.  I moved in with my best friend, Joe Mallory, who'd already moved away from his alcoholic dad.

Both of us continued to attend Kent-Meridian High School as if nothing had happened.

I got a great deal on an aluminum travel trailer from a truck driver, Earl Maxwell.  Mr. Maxwell asked only $250 for the trailer, allowing me to pay it off $25 per month.  

Joe knew the Lager brothers who owned the Lager Dairy, a small family dairy that sold non-homogenized milk to customers in Maple Valley, Washington.  They allowed me to park my trailer on their property for free.

The Lagers were old men with long beards, members of a religious sect, all born in the late 1800's.  One of them cooked breakfast every morning on a wood stove, a stack of flapjacks with duck eggs on top and boiled coffee.

Joe and I had a standing invitation for breakfast every morning, but we both worked six graveyard shifts a week cleaning Renton Lanes, a bowling alley.

Joe oiled the lanes, emptied all the ash trays while I cleaned the rest rooms, lobby and restaurant.  Then, we went to school.

On our day off, we ate breakfast with the Lagers.  If we tried to pay for our food, the old cook would point to the dog.

"Forget it!  Anything you don't eat goes to that mutt!"

Joe and I did make sure the Lager boys always had enough kindling for their stove.  We would take turns splitting cedar wood into kindling with an ax.  I can still remember the smell of cedar on those drizzly winter nights with warm Chinook winds making things comfortable.

I got up on cold mornings for thirty years in Arkansas, scraping ice off the windshield, driving to work in a cold car, gloves frozen to the steering wheel till the heater kicked in.  

Sometimes, Interstate 40 was frozen over, once or twice spinning my car into a complete 180.  Dangerous times just getting to work.

Nena has gone to bed for the night with her electric blanket on"4."  We have a small radiant heater that keeps things cozy during the night.

Brownsville gets "cold," but it's all relative.

I'm not sure I know what cold is.