What a shock.

Winter hit with an Alberta Clipper that sent temperatures dipping into the 20s around here and single digits to our west last week.  Our puppy, Ferrah, didn’t seem to notice. She bounded out the back door to see if any squirrels were foolish enough to be crossing the lawn, not that she’s ever caught up with one. If anything, she was energized by the cold and stayed out.

Carol wasn’t as foolish. She picked up the paper at the end of the drive and didn’t hesitate on returning bundled up in her parka and ear muffs.

“It’s the wind. It cuts through you,” she said. To emphasize how cold, she put her bare hand on the back of my neck, and she had been wearing gloves. I shivered. It confirmed my suggestion that we have oatmeal for breakfast.  She warmed to the idea and dug in the cupboard to retrieve the Quaker Oats. Food always improves the outlook of things. Oatmeal hit the spot. I didn’t even need coffee.

White caps flaked the bay. There was no sign of the two swans that had been feeding the day before – their bottoms standing up like white flags as their long necks reached whatever was down there. Joining them was a flock of Brant geese that patrolled the shore.

But they were gone. The air was clear, the sky a bright blue. The wind whistled.

It reminded me of when it really got cold. I should remember the year. It wasn’t that many years after we moved to Conimicut in 1975.  The arctic air didn’t let up for days. The furnace never stopped. I kept calling Potter Oil and reminding the kids to be sure they closed the door. Ice formed on the bay. Broken up by the changing tides, large slabs of it piled up along the shore. Finally, the waves disappeared no matter how hard it blew, Ice extended all the way to the Barrington shore.

“Dad, let’s see how far we can walk,” ventured my sons. That wasn’t a good idea. What, would you walk as far as you could before the ice cracked, and then how would you get back, if you weren’t in the water?

I dismissed this suggestion, but then a few adventuresome neighbors were out there. What do I say to my kids, might they be emboldened by their friends? Might they want to show despite all the warnings they weren’t afraid?

“Okay, let’s see how thick it is.” The boys looked at me with disbelief. After all my preaching about the dangers of ice – especially salt water ice – was I going to go out there?

I bundled up and made sure they did the same. I told them to find heavy sticks to steady themselves and to pull each other, hopefully not out of the water. Once clear of the chipped ice along the shoreline, the milky ice stretched out in great sheets separated where they had once broken free and refrozen. We went as far as the winter stick for our mooring, although it looked solid from there.

We looked at one another. Should we venture farther? It was cold. It didn’t take convincing to turn back. There were no more pleas to go out on the ice.

In the years that followed, the bay would freeze but never to the point that it did then. And in recent years, all I’ve seen is a skim coating barely thick enough for a seagull to stand on.

It’s got to be global warming.

My advice on these frigid mornings: try hot oatmeal and stay clear of the ice.