Back to thicker blankets, colder feet

It seems like just yesterday I was complaining to my wife that I was too warm with the comforter on the bed, arguing that it wasn’t really that cold yet to need such a thick blanket.

Now, we are having that conversation again and all my wife has to do is touch me with her freezing feet to convince me we are back in winter and that at least she needs the extra blanket.

Winter has arrived and on Monday I had my first day of driving in the fog. I am sure I will have many more.

More times than not, winter usually arrives the weekend before Thanksgiving, give or take a week. I can remember when I worked for weekly papers and covered the high school games from the sideline, that I was pretty comfortable until the final two games of the season. Of course, back then the regular season didn’t end until the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Today, some teams have been done for a couple of weeks.

Covering a game from the sidelines was always a lot of fun, as long as my feet weren’t frozen. You’d get the bantering, the coaches hollering, the sound of the pads popping and the roar of the crowd.

I recall a playoff game, a game for a Valley championship played in Reedley in December, and it was cold. It was so cold I noticed ice had already formed in some puddles as I walked to the stadium. In those days, being a one-man band at the newspaper, I was the photographer and reporter. So, my attempt at wearing gloves really did not work. They were too thick to both take photos and notes, so I kept one glove on, while the other hand froze.
My best idea to stay warm in those days was layers and layers of clothing, especially two pairs of socks. For me, nothing is worse than my feet being really cold.

Now, cold feet is not a problem for me most of the time. Like most husbands, I probably tolerate cold much better than my wife who begins wearing sweats about a month earlier than I do. But, when I do have to be out in the cold for an expended amount of time, I will still pull out the two-pairs-of-socks trick. It works every time.

At The Recorder, we are in the weather-watch time of year. Being in the citrus belt, keeping an eye on the temperature is important. We don’t want any more freezes, so we tend to want to see rain and fog — even though I don’t like driving in fog — before we see freezing temperatures.

I do hope that warm weather returns as fast as it seemed the cold weather returned. At least I can then kick off that thick blanket.

Rick Elkins is editor of the Porterville Recorder. He can be reached at 784-5000, ext. 1040, or by e-mail at relkins@portervillerecorder.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.