I can’t figure the weather, but my mother still helps keep me warm

At first, I thought it was my imagination.


I was walking to a Metra commuter rail station Saturday morning when damp little driplets began to pelt my face.

IT WAS CLEAR that it was not rainfall. But snow? This early in the season. When we’re officially still two months away from the beginning of winter?

Sure enough, it was.

A snowfall so light that it barely registered. But it is what we got hit with in Chicago this morning, and the cloudy overcast day and cold temperatures made worse by the fact that I spent a part of the morning right on the shore of Lake Michigan (at the one-time U.S. Steel South Works site) where there were no big buildings to alter the breeze.

I got hit with a blast of chill. It felt like a winter’s day. And when later in the day it started to actually rain, I got soaked and seriously cold.

SATURDAY NIGHT, the temperatures were to hit levels just above freezing.

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is that I got spoiled by what essentially was a mild summer. It was fairly comfortable. We didn’t get many days of excessively high temperatures.

I definitely got spoiled by the notion of comfortable temperatures. I’m not ready yet for excess winter cold.

Particularly if it is anything like those excessive days of heavy snow and sudden chill that we endured over and over and over again back in January and February of this year.

FOR THE RECORD, this is not the earliest snowfall on record in Chicago. The national Weather Service says that in both 1928 and 1944 on Sept. 25, the Second City got hit with traces of snow.

So 2014 will be the year we can chant “We’re Number 3!!!” when it comes to snowfall. But that fact does not make this weekend any more pleasant.

The fact that Sunday was a bit warmer than Saturday only means we had to appreciate the slight uptick in heat all the more, since it is clear summertime is over – although the fact that baseball is still being played without Chicago ball clubs ought to have been the ultimate evidence of that fact.

Despite all this attitude that really is one step up from a whine, I can’t say I would want to give serious thought to leaving Chicago. The city has way too much going for it for me to consider leaving just because of a dose of cold.

BESIDES, THE FACT is that in the “real” world, temperatures get cold. I don’t know that I fully trust any place where people think a 30-plus degree day is a cold spell and evidence of the polar vortex.

If anything, the most unpleasant aspect of snow in Chicago is that it will get all the nitwits worked up who think they have a right to stake claims to parking spaces on public streets by dredging up all their summertime lawn furniture.

I’d suggest citing those people for littering, except that I realize our police officers really do have more significant things they ought to be doing with their time while on duty.

What I’m going to dredge up is one of my warmer jackets – one that I tucked away back in March and haven’t worn since.

IT IS ONE that I got as a present from my mother for Christmas 2009 – a leather jacket (although I do have one of those heavy, bulky down jackets for the truly shivering days).

That happens to be the last Christmas I celebrated with my mother prior to her passing. It was a last gift she gave to me.

So as I go about in coming weeks managing to stay warm despite the chill in the air, all I’ll have to say is, “Thanks Mom.”

  -30-

How important is your employment? Did you bear the brunt of the cold?

I was among the masses Monday, or so it seems. I got to work from home because of the frigid weather.


Frosty view of the neighborhood

I didn’t venture any farther than half-a-block from my humble abode, and even that was just for a few minutes so I could take a few photographs to document the conditions – which are hard to illustrate since the snowfall is past and the story of the day on Monday was the temperature that you felt – not saw!

NOW I DO some work for a daily newspaper. Although it turned out that all of the assignments I thought I was going to chase were for events that wound up being cancelled due to the cold.

I spent a significant chunk of my day working the telephone and talking to an assortment of police and fire officials, Public Works crews and various elected officials to figure out how people were reacting.

The consensus seems to be that people were so thoroughly warned about the weather that they were prepared. And in many cases, they didn’t even bother to go to work.

Which means most of those who were working were literally those police officers and firefighters who HAD to be on hand in the event of an emergency. That, and the Public Works crews who were on call throughout the weekend in order to keep streets passable.

ALTHOUGH THOSE WHO got a glimpse of the part of the Chicago area that lies on the other side of the Illinois-Indiana border got to see images of impassable roads, and word that the commuter trains to the Loop didn’t run at all.

Some of us worked Monday, and some of us didn’t.

My snow-encrusted car that didn't run properly before

Technically, I did some work. Although I was fortunate to be able to do it from within the confines of my humble abode.

As opposed to my brother, Chris, who works at a Home Depot store and wound up having to put in an eight-hour shift as the store was open for business.

 

Neighbors won't picnic anytime soon

I’D LIKE TO think that people interested in a home remodeling project could have put it off.

I wonder how much of the business was from people who didn’t think ahead of time and suddenly found themselves in need of a specific tool in order to make an emergency repair that otherwise would have caused their lives to be unbearable.

And for what it's worth, my brother did wind up having to spent part of his working day outdoors. "It's cold as (a certain municipality in Michigan that some also equate with eternal damnation) out here," is what he told me when I spoke to him briefly in mid-day.

Somebody lost a glove!

Although I do know he has said in the past that the store itself is kept so warm (even in the summer months) that he can build up a sweat in winter-time when he works indoors.

MY SYMPATHIES GO out to those who got stuck having to work outside, and where no amount of tuques, face masks, heavy mittens or gloves, along with layers of sweatshirts underneath a down jacket will keep them warm.

Particularly if their employment duties aren’t so much to keep us safe as to keep some chain corporation’s financial bottom line up to a certain level deemed necessary for a CEO somewhere to have an adequate profit WITHOUT having to lay off more people.

Yes, the chill of an Arctic-type winter (supposedly, the wind chill factor made Monday feel like a 45-below day) has put me in a sarcastic mood. I’d probably be even worse if I had actually had to deal with a chill in my fingers as I tried to take notes of the sayings of our U.S. senators – who were supposed to gather in the Pullman neighborhood to breathe life into now-former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s desire to turn the one-time railcar factory and surrounding neighborhood into a national park.

Envision the hazards when those icicles start falling

 

But they cancelled (as did a few other assignments), and I got to stay indoors (and yes, I literally am wearing a particularly comfortable pair of pajamas as I write this commentary).

MY SYMPATHIES EXTEND to those who had to work regardless of the weather conditions.

Except for, perhaps, the U.S. Postal Service worker who was supposed to make the trip to my residence on Monday. As far as I can tell, he never showed up -- despite all the rhetoric about "Neither snow nor rain nor heat" keeping postal workers "from their appointed rounds."

Which was an issue for me, since there literally was supposed to be a "check in the mail" that I hoped to get Monday.

  -30-

EXTRA: Up to 10, but not so bad

It seems that we’re up to 10 deceased people whom the Cook County medical examiner’s office is willing to say were caused due to the excessive heat.

FELDON: Could lovely Agent 99 get us all heated?



That may sound like quite a bit. And I’m not going to downplay the significance of a lost life. On the other hand, I don’t want to overplay it either.

I STILL SAY that things could have been a lot worse for us during the past few days. And it seems like the worst has passed. We didn’t hit 100 (as in degrees) on Saturday. We had to settle for 99 (as in temperature, not Agent …), which is still rather warm, even for a Chicago summer day.

I also have to confess one other observation – there was one point when I was getting out of my car late in the afternoon when I actually felt a cool breeze blow past me.

It felt so good, and I’m hoping we all get many more of them in coming days.

  -30-