Friends of my childhood, those friends who knew all the details of my disdain for wearing layers of winter clothing, will no doubt be laughing in their thermal socks.
As a know-it-all pre-teen and teenager, there was a constant battle waged in my parental home as they (parents) and I debated over how many layers it would take to ward off frost bite and internal chills during the winters that to that point were always more dangerous than any that had gone before.
There is photographic evidence that the parents won all the skirmishes prior to the school bus days that took us to another community via the warmth of a heated vehicle. We were dropped off and picked up at the doors of the school, leaving only less than a moment’s walk to the warmth of the indoors. In my mind that meant it was wasting clothing and time to dress as though we had to walk up hill to and from school, climbing snow banks to get to our destinations. The walk to meet the bus did not count in my argument.
The photos show this child bundled in parkas and winter over-alls, hood up, scarf around the forehead and neck, mittens in place and snow boots buckled to the top of their fur trim. I do admit that the child looked as though she were enjoying the winter outdoors, even pulling or sitting on a sled, and wearing all that gear for the family photographer.
And I will admit that not once in my entire childhood did I suffer from frost bite, nor did I lose fingers and toes even though such a loss was often proclaimed as a dire result of not wearing proper amounts of winter apparel.
An acknowledgement that the parents were wiser than their child has been many years in the making, but here it is: “Mom and Dad were smarter than their children.”
It is not too much to think they would have been laughing out loud if they had watched me digging through the drawers and closets in recent years. My purchases in preparation for winter temperatures have gone beyond sweaters, gloves and a parka rated for Arctic lows. Without admitting that I have become my parents, I bought some thermal long-johns. I bought a couple of packages of thermal, long-sleeved, itchy tops to wear under my normal pullovers. I bought a pair of mitts to wear over my fleece-lined gloves. And I bought a scarf.
In preparation for a trip to Regina for an appointment I donned my long-johns, my support hose, my regular heavy wool trousers, my thermal long-sleeved top, my regular top, and a zip-up thermal sweater. It was such a chore putting on all those layers that I had to sit down for a rest before dragging on my parka and bending over to zip the zip and put the buttons through the holes. My scarf went into my pocket. Then I needed to rest before pushing my feet into boots with the winter studs on the bottom.
Fitting behind the steering wheel was a challenge but not nearly the challenge of sitting in the backseat and being so heavily clothed that I had a difficult time making the seat belt stretch across my blimpy self.
Again, I have to say the parents were correct. All those layers kept me warm and that blanket with me in the back seat would have been another layer of protection had the car failed or we slipped into a ditch.
Hopefully my old friends have matured along with me, and are also dressing in layers. I won’t laugh at them and in return, I hope they won’t too loudly laugh if they see my rotund body rolling down the sidewalk. At least we all will be warm.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
