Why not Minot?

This morning I woke up extra-early to start my car because Hot Guy reported that it was struggling to turn over yesterday when he warmed my car up for me. I wasted away the minutes of car-warming by watching the local morning news, something I never do. The blue ticker was running across the screen, listing all of the school closings in the area. I think they were all closed. It was 16° below zero at 6:30 am.

My first thought - as it always is when schools are closed in Rockford - was "Damn, if they closed schools for this in North Dakota, I'd still be learning how to read." Not that I don't think it's justified or that I'm calling Illinois residents great big sissies . . . though many are . . . it's just so different. I grew up just south of Minot, North Dakota, and it takes a helluva lot more than 16° below zero for that part of the world to freak out to the extent that Rockford, IL is freaking out right now.

This week is the first time in recent memory that I haven't had to stop my friends and coworkers during conversations about the weather to clarify whether they were talking about actual temperature or windchill. Windchill was a measurement that I only vaguely remember from my childhood. I guess when the actual temperature gets so far below zero so frequently in a place where the wind never stops blowing, windchill is just not worth talking about.

I tried to suppress my "These people are sissies" thoughts, but even the CNN article about this "arctic blast" brings it up:

Grand Forks, North Dakota, also registered 30 below.

"For this time of year, this isn't that unusual, as far as temperatures go," said weather service meteorologist Bill Abeling in Bismarck, North Dakota.

"To get record temperatures this time of year in North Dakota, you've got to delve down in the 40-below region, so we're not even close."

North Dakotans like to say that the weather keeps the riff-raff out, which I usually include as part of my favorite weather joke. "Do you know what they call this kind of weather where I come from? July." I had to giggle when googling this morning. I found a website that not only details the record lows of my home state, but also talks about the habit of hyperbole among those who surive those temperatures.

"North Dakotans enjoy the cold winters or at least tolerate them with casual indifference because of such modern conveniences and equipment as petroleum-burning furnaces, indoor plumbing, farm stock-watering systems, farm shelterbelts, automobiles with powerful heaters, good highways and good snow removal equipment, and well-designed winter clothing. Enjoying winter as they do, North Dakotans are somewhat prone to proudly exaggerate the intensity of winter cold snaps and blizzards as they regale friends and relatives from warmer climates about the rigors of winter."

I've never been guilty of that, now have I?

One of my best blizzard memories was from when I was perhaps 7 or 8 - Dad would surely remember the exact year, but I don't. Mom worked at a hospital that was a good 30 to 40 minute drive, so she carpooled with my Aunt Mary, who worked at the same hospital and lived even further away. A blizzard hit, and Mom and Mary both tried to call out of work, but the hospital begged them to try to make it. My Uncle Dave drove Mary to our town, and then he and Dad tried to get them to Minot. Nothing doing. The weather was just too bad. But it was also too bad for Dave and Mary and their kids to head home. Mary's parents also lived in our town. The details are fuzzy, so I'm not sure how long they stayed with us or whether they split time at her parents' house, but I do remember long days spent playing basketball in the upstairs middle bedroom with my cousins Travis and Cris. Even using a foam ball, we knocked the light out multiple times, until I think our lives were threatened if we didn't find a way to occupy ourselves besides basketball.

Again, I could have the dates entirely screwed up in my head, but I believe that was the week where school was cancelled on a Monday for the entire week. They knew the storm would be very bad, so they just gave up on watching the weather and cancelled it for a week. The governor excused those days so that we didn't have to stay an extra week into the summer.

When we first moved to Illinois, my mother had one of her first weather-related culture shock moments when she went to pick up her dry cleaning. A woman stopped her and pointed at the hood of Mom's car, telling her she had something hanging out. It was the cord. You know, the electric cord. To plug the car in. What?

All of the vehicles that my parents bought in North Dakota came with a headbolt heater. All of the vehicles that they have purchased in Illinois with the intention of driving to North Dakota to visit during the winter have also needed them. Without that heater, a vehicle has no hope of ever starting in a North Dakota winter. Also, it makes for a jolly good time when you forget to unplug your car and drive away, dragging the extension cord, outlet, and part of your house's siding along with you.

In Illinois, we had the thrill of convincing people that the cord for the headbolt heater was there because we had electric cars long before such a thing was on the market.

Because we're North Dakotans, and we have a tendency to proudly exaggerate.