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Frosty mornings trigger memories of even frostier mornings of long ago
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Location: Blogs Sly Comments |
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| Posted by: Emory Schley |
12/19/2007 6:43 AM |
Monday morning marked the first really cool morning we’ve had so far this season. It was a chilly 36° when I awoke at 5:30 a.m., then the temperature continued to slowly go down to 32.8° before it stopped then began its slow climb back up to more comfortable numbers. I’m sure the air conditioners in Florida appreciate the break and the chance to quit running 24/7 for a day or two at least. I’ve often thought that it’s surely a good thing that air conditioners don’t have labor unions. If they did, Florida would only have about a third of its present population.
When we first moved up here from Miami back in 1971, we weren’t all that accustomed to such temperatures, although my wife and I had certainly experienced much worse in the past. She’s a Pennsylvania farm girl, and temperatures up in northern Pennsylvania do get a bit chilly at times. While in the Army, I had spent four years in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. I’d been told several times that southern Germany gets considerably colder than northern Germany (due to the differences in altitude), and while I can’t say much about the cold in northern Germany, I certainly can attest to the fact that southern Germany DEFINITELY got pretty doggoned cold.
I was in the Motor Pool one particularly cold day, washing a Jeep, and watched the water literally freeze before it could run off the fender. And the Army tanks we had would freeze to the concrete pads where they were parked. The quickest way to get them loose was to start up every tank in the battalion (an hourly procedure during the coldest nights), find one that wasn’t frozen into place and use it to deliberately collide with another tank, freeing it from its icy grasp. Then those two would free two more which would then join in the effort. There used to be a lot of clanging and banging back then, but all 72 tanks in the battalion would be free to rumble within minutes using that brute force technique.
Fortunately, it doesn’t get quite that cold here, and we should all be thankful for that blessing, however, one morning back in the 1970s, it got down to a frosty 8° on our front porch in the Florida Highlands in the south end of the county. I took my camera outside and took a photo to record that event for posterity. I used to have a print from that negative, but somewhere in the intervening years, it’s gotten lost. That’s probably a good thing, too. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of the fact that it can, at times, get pretty miserably cold even here in Beautiful Marion County! |
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Re: Frosty mornings trigger memories of even frostier mornings of long ago |
By All so true on
12/20/2007 8:18 AM |
| Emory,<br>Because of the Interstates and the advent of A/C, everyone in the world now moves to Florida. Prior, the mosquitoes, gnats and other critters, mixed with the heat and tended to drive people away. I don't if it's such a good thing anymore to be so crowded. Perhaps a return to the days of the old hand fan would exit us back to the past. Enjoy the weather. Have a great holiday season. |
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