Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Mary Collins, 1930 - 2014
Mary, of next door's Bob and Mary, the best neighbors in the world, the nicest people on earth, died unexpectedly on Wednesday, February 5. As Bob said, she was a giant heart with a big smile.
Mary with Bob and Dinky, last May, at the old house:
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Hell Freezes Over
My parents are laughing. "All that complaining you did about the cold when you were a kid, and now look at you! Wisconsin!"
I grew up in Colorado, where it snowed before Halloween and spring didn't come till the next May. One morning in June the year I graduated from high school (and left the state), it snowed four inches. The day I would choose a climate like this would be the day hell freezes over.
View of our street, 1973
So people change.
My brother Vince attended UW-Madison his sophomore year and because of the bitter cold called it the worst year of his life (note "year," singular form). My best friend from childhood spent just one semester here before she bailed. Another friend, one who came and stuck it out, described buying fur-lined boots one day for the sole purpose (heh-heh) of walking across a street. I knew all of this. And I came anyway.
January 6, 2014, was officially the coldest day of my life, with wind chills around 50 degrees below zero. Here's a photo of a bolt on the inside of the front door that morning:
Actually, I don't mind cold the way I did as a kid. It's convenient being able to use the garage as an auxiliary refrigerator. And sleeping at night in a frigid room, buried under quilts, is pretty great (although getting out of bed is admittedly less so). My husband Allen used to find the Colorado cold "exhilarating"; now I know what he means.
BUT. The snow is a different matter. And now, harking back to my Colorado childhood, I see history repeating itself.
The driveway back then was legendary. The house was perched on a mountain, accessed by a long driveway with a steep grade. It was flanked on each side not by grassy lawn or other terra firma, or even a protective curb, but by open air. More accurately, on each side of the driveway yawned a ravine filled with barbed-wire-like scrub oak and spear-like conifers. The driveway started its life as gravel; within a couple of years, thanks to the scrabbling of tires seeking purchase, it developed bumps and undulations that in winter became expert ski slope moguls. Eventually my parents had it smoothed out and paved. They had to.
The driveway, 1973
Regardless of season, regardless of surface, getting up the drive required both courage and skill. The successful ascent involved making a running start and maintaining speed all the way up. If you were tentative, the car would stall, and you would have to guide its dead weight backwards between the twin chasms. Heaven help you in winter. Many a car had to be hoisted out of the Ditch of Death, the Maw of Mayhem. Indeed, my parents bought an old Army jeep with a winch on the front for this purpose. I was the first to topple over the edge, and my parents were furious when they saw their Buick Skylark in the ditch, its hood pointing up at the sky as if trying to claim its eponymous destiny. But then visiting relatives did the very same thing the very next day ...
Fast forward 40 years. Although the driveway at 2425 Kendall Ave is shorter, it's about as steep as the one of my youth, and the stories are already accruing, the legend is forming. A couple weeks ago, Mary parked near the top of the drive, and an hour later when we glanced outside, her car was gone! Oh my god! It's been stolen! Um. Wait a sec. What's it doing halfway out in the street? Physics lesson: If the weight of an object exceeds the traction afforded by the surface on which it sits, gravity wins. Life lesson: Don't park in the driveway in winter. It's been snowing non-stop for two months now, and I've gone through so many bags of kitty litter, it's fair to say that the once-paved drive is now gravel, a reversal of family history. Thanks also to daily shoveling, the snowbanks on each side of the drive are so high it looks like a luge track. Call this an inversion of history. There's no way to slide off into the conifers.
The driveway, 2014: Olympic practice track?
Then there are the sidewalks. The City of Madison decrees that residents shall keep sidewalks free of snow and ice. Keeping the 110 linear feet on Highland, the 55 feet on Kendall, the two curb cutouts at the corner, and the fire hydrant in front of the house cleared of all signs of winter is the ultimate Sisyphean task. Every morning Lena and I shovel. Every inch, side to side, by law.
The Highland Ave side
The Kendall Ave side
And shoveling isn't always sufficient. Here's the warning I received when the sidewalks were shoveled edge to edge and sprinkled with salt and sand but not ENOUGH salt and sand:
The good news: Shoveling snow is a meditation practice—repetitive and peaceful, one stroke after another. And it keeps you buff, with trapezii of steel. These are the things we tell ourselves in Wisconsin when faced with the combined consequences of geography and season. Also, though it seems impossible today, we remind ourselves that one day we'll be able to open our windows again, and when that day comes, everyone will swarm onto the sidewalks, wearing bright colors and flip-flops, greeting one another like long-lost friends and lovers. It may be frozen now, but one day soon it will be like heaven.
So people change.
My brother Vince attended UW-Madison his sophomore year and because of the bitter cold called it the worst year of his life (note "year," singular form). My best friend from childhood spent just one semester here before she bailed. Another friend, one who came and stuck it out, described buying fur-lined boots one day for the sole purpose (heh-heh) of walking across a street. I knew all of this. And I came anyway.
January 6, 2014, was officially the coldest day of my life, with wind chills around 50 degrees below zero. Here's a photo of a bolt on the inside of the front door that morning:
Actually, I don't mind cold the way I did as a kid. It's convenient being able to use the garage as an auxiliary refrigerator. And sleeping at night in a frigid room, buried under quilts, is pretty great (although getting out of bed is admittedly less so). My husband Allen used to find the Colorado cold "exhilarating"; now I know what he means.
BUT. The snow is a different matter. And now, harking back to my Colorado childhood, I see history repeating itself.
The driveway back then was legendary. The house was perched on a mountain, accessed by a long driveway with a steep grade. It was flanked on each side not by grassy lawn or other terra firma, or even a protective curb, but by open air. More accurately, on each side of the driveway yawned a ravine filled with barbed-wire-like scrub oak and spear-like conifers. The driveway started its life as gravel; within a couple of years, thanks to the scrabbling of tires seeking purchase, it developed bumps and undulations that in winter became expert ski slope moguls. Eventually my parents had it smoothed out and paved. They had to.
The driveway, 1973
Regardless of season, regardless of surface, getting up the drive required both courage and skill. The successful ascent involved making a running start and maintaining speed all the way up. If you were tentative, the car would stall, and you would have to guide its dead weight backwards between the twin chasms. Heaven help you in winter. Many a car had to be hoisted out of the Ditch of Death, the Maw of Mayhem. Indeed, my parents bought an old Army jeep with a winch on the front for this purpose. I was the first to topple over the edge, and my parents were furious when they saw their Buick Skylark in the ditch, its hood pointing up at the sky as if trying to claim its eponymous destiny. But then visiting relatives did the very same thing the very next day ...
Fast forward 40 years. Although the driveway at 2425 Kendall Ave is shorter, it's about as steep as the one of my youth, and the stories are already accruing, the legend is forming. A couple weeks ago, Mary parked near the top of the drive, and an hour later when we glanced outside, her car was gone! Oh my god! It's been stolen! Um. Wait a sec. What's it doing halfway out in the street? Physics lesson: If the weight of an object exceeds the traction afforded by the surface on which it sits, gravity wins. Life lesson: Don't park in the driveway in winter. It's been snowing non-stop for two months now, and I've gone through so many bags of kitty litter, it's fair to say that the once-paved drive is now gravel, a reversal of family history. Thanks also to daily shoveling, the snowbanks on each side of the drive are so high it looks like a luge track. Call this an inversion of history. There's no way to slide off into the conifers.
The driveway, 2014: Olympic practice track?
Then there are the sidewalks. The City of Madison decrees that residents shall keep sidewalks free of snow and ice. Keeping the 110 linear feet on Highland, the 55 feet on Kendall, the two curb cutouts at the corner, and the fire hydrant in front of the house cleared of all signs of winter is the ultimate Sisyphean task. Every morning Lena and I shovel. Every inch, side to side, by law.
The Highland Ave side
The Kendall Ave side
And shoveling isn't always sufficient. Here's the warning I received when the sidewalks were shoveled edge to edge and sprinkled with salt and sand but not ENOUGH salt and sand:
The good news: Shoveling snow is a meditation practice—repetitive and peaceful, one stroke after another. And it keeps you buff, with trapezii of steel. These are the things we tell ourselves in Wisconsin when faced with the combined consequences of geography and season. Also, though it seems impossible today, we remind ourselves that one day we'll be able to open our windows again, and when that day comes, everyone will swarm onto the sidewalks, wearing bright colors and flip-flops, greeting one another like long-lost friends and lovers. It may be frozen now, but one day soon it will be like heaven.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
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