EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — It’s cold outside. Maybe you’ve heard.
But there is cold, and there is cold cold. And while some in Boston rush to social media to post pictures of thermometers — It’s in the single digits! — here in timber country, the wind chills plunged past bone-chilling to dangerous and people think a little differently.
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They shrug it off as if somehow that represents some sort of snub to Boston and/or the rest of Massachusetts, but when no one's looking they whine just like everyone else. I'd like to see them melt and cry for mercy during one of Baltimore's summers while those of us 'used to it' just shrug off the heat and humidity.
When you live in northern NE, temps down to -20 are part of the winter. You get a block heater and plug your car in, and bundle up. Only outdoor event I had canceled was a nighttime sledding party when it was -33 not counting wind chill. Bonfire wouldn't have been enough!
JLE3,
Lighen up, eh?
Besides, who cares about Baltimore?
OOH. Hate mail. Lucky me. Actually, that was the point of my comment...I lived in Maine for 5 years, and my impression of them is, they need to lighten up and stop acting like it's OK for them to behave like jerks because 'at least they're not from Massachusetts.' Those of us from Baltimore care about it quite a bit; no need to feel sore because the Ravens and Orioles cleaned the Patriots' and Red Sox's clocks. I enjoy Boston, and I enjoyed Maine, but really, y'all are so full of yourselves. Enjoy your weekend, amigo.
Billy Baker writes this story as if there is something unusual about a cold winter ... in New England. Sure, citified Bostonians and their Massachusetts peers have for a long time preferred indoor warmth via efficient heating systems and even automobile heaters. So do Mainers prefer the warmth, if they have the time to use it, but their society more often keeps them outdoors more than the wimpy wonders in Boston. This old dud prefers being outdoors at the height of a cold blizzard with his snowblower than pulling the drapes back at the living room window to watch the snow falling, a window located not far from Boston, not Downeast Norway or Millinocket.
I think what strikes me about this piece is that it portrays what I actually think is a highly unflattering side of the north country—the almost resentful chip on your shoulder aloofness, in which everyone “from away” is a shivering New York lawyer who’s afraid to go outside at night because of bears or whatever. It always drove me crazy growing up here in NH (griping about the "summer people", though they kept us all employed) and it’s worse in Maine. The spirit of Bert and I, with that attitude leavened by gentle humor and a kind of forgiving, if stern, welcome, is gone-- if it ever existed at all. I'm sure the good people of Siberia would laugh at all of it.
I spent my first 2 years in the Air Force at Loring AFB in Limestone(take 95 north to the end, then go 65 miles north on Rt 1 from there) and I can tell you that cold is cold. Low tempatures are routinely well below zero at night, not to mention the 10-15 feet of snow, and having done shift work, I often had to walk to work in those conditions. Coldest I ever personally experienced was a straight temp of -27 with winds of 50+ mph which put the wind chill somewhere in the neighborhood of -85. You would get the occasional above freezing days and people would litterally walk aroud with just a sweatshirt. So no matter how cold it gets I can always say that I've been colder. And I would still rather push a snowblower around in a January blizzzard than a lawnmower on a July afternoon.
I wonder who the staff writer ticked off to get sent up there to write this non-story?
Ah yup!
It's Man-Made Global Cooling at work.