Weather

I can't believe the warm January days we are having here in Houston, Texas. It has been 70 degrees and higher with no predictions of cold weather. Several times recently, the weather reporter on TV has said cold weather was due , but it never materialized.  I have experienced various winter weather patterns in my life time, but frigid, snowy days dominated.

In those long ago school days, my siblings and I wore heavy coats or snow suits and snow boots. The boy's snow boots had a knife pocket, which I always thought unfair since the girls boots were just plain. We also wore knitted hats with pom poms on the top which were called tokes [sic, recte tuque].

One of my earliest memories of blizzards was when I was in the first grade and walking home from school. I was unaware that it was a blizzard, only that it was very cold and the wind was so strong I had to walk backward when the cold gusts pushed me off the sidewalk. The sleet pricked my face and walking with my side turned toward the wind helped. About half way home, my mother appeared in the blowing snow and sleet and held a newspaper in front of my face and put her arm around me as we walked the rest of the way home.

In those early school days of my childhood, Dad was often asked to leave his inside job of switch board operator at the phone company to help linemen who were working to restore telephone lines that had come down during blizzard conditions. It would often be late in the evening when he would get home. Mom would have steaming coffee and a hot meal waiting for him. I watched as he took off his heavy clothes and unlace his boots, and rub his hands together to get them warm, all the time telling Mom about how bad the weather was and how many miles out in the country side they had to work.

Having a 'white' Christmas was special, and we were rarely disappointed. One year my husband and I spent the holidays with his family in Philadelphia. I had been told about the sledding on the hill near the house, but there had not been snow all season so I was not going to enjoy a sled run down the hill. Imagine my surprise when we woke Christmas morning to find everything covered with a thick blanket of powder snow!

My first Christmas away from home was in San Francisco and I spent the day joining other sun bathers on the beach under the Golden Gate bridge. The temperature was 85 degrees. I still remember how strange it seemed to wear my bathing suit on the day I opened my Christmas presents.

The Mistral winds of the southern of France are similar to the Santa Anna winds of Southern California. When my husband and I were on our walking trip thru France, Switzerland and Italy, we experienced them on the return route to Paris. We were told by the inhabitants that the Mistrals often lasted a week, and after experiencing them for three days, we understood what people meant when they said Mistrals could drive you crazy.

Living here in Houston, I've become familiar with hurricanes and hot, humid temperatures of 100 plus degrees. While watching videos of glaciers breaking apart in huge chunks, demonstrating climate change, I can't help but wonder how people will cope and endure the drastic changes predicted. Humans are resilient and resourceful, so I have no doubt they will find ways. I can only imagine the strange garb they will be forced to wear to protect themselves. In the meantime I will continue to knit sweaters for cold, windy days, and blankets for cold winter nights.

Highways and Byways
I knitted this blanket for my son's Christmas present 2011