Blessed are the cold days…
When nothing moves and no one stays
The air is clear and bites the face
And all things sleep in winter’s grace
Nowadays, we don’t get the cold here in the Catskills and Hudson Valley as much as we used to. Maybe it’s climate change or just an attitude copped by old man winter, but I can distinctly recall periods of time up to say a decade ago with a duration that could approach a week at a time where the Fahrenheit would slip below the zero mark, as far down as minus 7° or -8°.
On those auspicious days, the hearty among us might get up and get out of the house between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. and walk up Mill Hill Road into the middle of Woodstock, just stroll Tinker Street past the W.A.A., past the library, past Lasher’s Funeral Home (though you hustled on through for fear you might get stuck there), down toward Bearsville — right on the double yellow line in the center of the street, just ambling down the road. Owning the territory, you might do some figure-eight loops covering the width of Route 212, reveling in the freedom of solitude, in the extreme circumstances.
Sweet times are the frozen nights
When all my woes turn small and slight
We nestle warm by the oak wood fire
while the flames kindle old desire
oh your touch … restores my soul
and we stay young while we grow old
How cold is cold?
Well, suffice to say that the approximate minus 8 F we’ve enjoyed and shivered through over the years can feel like a balmy day in Denver.
Here’s some very superficial investigations I made, using at least two sources for each on the web.
Turns out that the temperature has plunged to its lowest recorded on the planet, as reported by the World Meteorological Organization in 2023, when, on the East Antarctica Plateau a record of minus 144 degrees Fahrenheit was reported. NASA calls that spot “the coldest place on Earth.”
That shattered the record of -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit reported in 1983 in Vostok, Antarctica that had been confirmed by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Russia.
Here are several more pieces of perhaps relevant information, without going deeper than this modest meditation can handle.
There are four different scales scientists use to measure temperature: Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin and Rankine. None of them can make it hotter or colder, they just assign different scales and numbers.
Then there is this measurement called Absolute Zero. Physicists call it “the coldest conceivable temperature,” or “the lowest possible temperature.” It’s calculated to be minus 459.67°F. The web tells us that “at a temperature of absolute zero there is no motion and no heat.”
And finally, as we teeter on subjects we know little about and can conceive of even less, there’s the Boomerang Nebula, or a protoplanetary nebula (look it up yourself), some 5000 light years away, which, NASA says provides us with “the coldest spot in the known cosmos” at one degree Kelvin, or minus 457.87 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cold culture
(Recite the following as fast as you can. Sing the Hank Williams line.)
Cold beer, cold feet, cold hands, cold cuts, how can I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart, ice cold, cold fish, cold shoulder, cold shower, cold pizza, cold rain, cold war, head cold, cold cider, cold blood, cold turkey, out cold, cold comfort, cold hard facts, Stone Cold Steve Austin, cold cream, cold sweat, cold noodles and on and on…
Some opinions about living in cold country — hey, it ain’t Minnesota!
Quote on TV: “Hey, it’s New York. It’s supposed to snow…”
Al, on the street: “Just give me June, July and August. You can keep the rest .…”
Jamey says: “Covid taught me to like cold because the only way I could get together with friends was outdoors. So I learned to get better garments on. Once I dressed more warmly, I learned to enjoy it …. Tim loves cold weather, and it was always a big difference between us, so it was good for the marriage ….”
Tim says: “I moved up here on New Year’s Day 1970. I hit the Thruway and saw these ice waterfalls along the road, and I thought, am I driving into paradise here? When I was a kid a state of bliss would come over me when it started to snow .…”
Geoff says: “When it’s hot I look forward to it, when it’s here, it’s bring on the spring.”
Tom E, musing on extreme cold: “Does anybody like that? I feel like I like it a lot less than I used to like it.”
Jana says, “It’s a shocker. I found a balaclava … as long as my ears are warm, I’m okay. I took a walk this morning, I layered. It’s easier when the sun is out … I don’t like being cold, but I can deal with it for a little bit. I like moderate…,”
Oh carry me back to the well
When signs of spring begin to tell
I lean my heart to the howling wind
And arch my back to the grind again
But you are here, and I’ll be, too
When the days turn cold, Ill be there for you
— Song lyrics by Brian Hollander
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