EXTRA: Just a thought

As seen in suburban Homewood. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Weather extremes; or Dog Days in Chi

Remember the polar vortex?

That period of a few days back in January when the shift in weather traits actually gave in Chicago a taste of what things normally are like around the Arctic Circle!

Rocco (left) and Carmelo back in the winter months. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

IT WAS COLD. Particularly that one day where I got an assignment that actually required me to go outside and walk around the neighborhood in search of some colorful tidbits for a newspaper story.

Which I managed to accomplish in record time. No point in getting frost-bite for the free-lance pay rate I take in these days.

I also remember having to take the dogs outside during those days so they could “do their business,” so to speak. They’re not paper-trained, so their reaction to bathroom-type functions is to want to go outside – no matter what the weather is like.

While Rocco and Carmelo usually manage to linger out in the back yard for a few minutes before doing their “duty,” on those days they managed to run outside, complete their business them come charging back to the house.

LITERALLY CLAWING AWAY at the back door in desperate need of somebody to let them inside. Because it’s cold out here!!!

Anyway, these are the memories popping into my head on Friday as we’re enduring a heat spell that some are saying will be record-setting for the Chicago area.

The National Weather Service issued warnings for northern Illinois and Indiana, along with southern Wisconsin, going from Friday at 10 a.m. and supposed to last until about 7 p.m. Saturday.

It’s going to be hot and humid and people were advised to stay indoors as much as possible during that time period.

Rocco prefers the snow from indoors

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, I took the doggies out for a walk Friday morning and they managed to complete their business. But the walk didn’t last that long – pretty soon the dogs were panting heavily as they were hot.

They couldn’t wait to get back inside, and it was a good move that I refilled their water dishes before the walk. For they immediately went for the water and began gulping it down once we got back to shelter.

Now there have been some reports these days reminiscing back into history and 1919, when the heat of that summer was considered a cause of boosting tensions that ultimately resulted in race riots that left many people dead.

Although I suspect many more people had 1995 come to their minds. Much more recent – although even that is a quarter-of-a-century in the past.

I WAS FORTUNATE enough to not actually be in Chicago that summer – I was living in Springfield, Ill., at the time, although I got to hear the horror stories from my mother and brother of just how ridiculously hot it became and the extremes they had to go through to remain cool.

I recall the reports ultimately said the intense heat was because of a shift that, for a couple of weeks, caused Chicago to become something along the lines of Saudi Arabia.

And while those who actually live in the desert perhaps are capable of coping with such conditions, we managed to get caught off-guard. Causing the hundreds of deaths from that summer due to intense heat.

Carmelo wanted the water!

All I know is that if this is what other parts of the world feel like, it makes me all the more thankful to be a Chicagoan. The rest of the world can keep their weather extremes.

BUT I MUST admit to being uncertain about which extreme is more uanbearable. Polar vortex or Arab desert?

All I know is that I take one look at Rocco and Carmelo in heavy pant and know they were about as miserable as they were back in January when they virtually froze their paws off.

  -30-

Fulfilling the public’s “right to know” caused me to freeze my fingers numb

Just about everybody who could find an excuse to justify it made a point Wednesday

Bogart's 'editor' never warned … 

of staying inside, not going anywhere and basically behaving themselves like a lazy slug.

I, however, was running around in the sub-zero freezing temperatures that, when combined with wind chill, felt something more like 50-below – all because of my work going about the business of trying to inform the general public.

… of winter weather reporting hazards

I AM A reporter-type person, willing to go out and seek the truth on a wide variety of issues; all with the thought and belief that I am somehow performing a sacred duty – letting the general public know what is happening in the world around them.

Wednesday’s temperatures, of course, dove down to such historically low levels that – for once – the weather was a legitimate news story.

In fact, I woke up Wednesday to learn that I was amongst the many thousands of people who had lost access to electricity during the overnight hours. Which is when I got a call from an editor-type person – ordering me to check out a tip about power outages.

Artsy images such as this … 

In this particular case, I was able to tell him from first-hand experience that there were places where there was no power.

ME, AND MANY of my neighbors, actually.

Which led me to getting into the car and driving around my neighborhood for a few blocks – looking for evidence that I wasn’t alone in being without power and no one could legitimately write me off as a financial deadbeat who fell behind on the electric bill.

I eventually found a good-samaritan type of person who was outside walking over to check on an elderly neighbor, while his own wife and child were resorting to using the fireplace to keep warm.

It made for a nice anecdote that eventually was contributed to a larger story about wintry weather conditions throughout Chicago on Wednesday.

… and scientific graphs don't adequately convey how cold Wednesday was

BUT I HAVE to confess, I was only out of the car and exposed to the elements for less than five minutes. I wore nice leather gloves that usually keep my hands warm.

When I was through, my fingertips were numbed. It actually took me about a half-hour for my digits to warm up to the point where I was physically capable of typing anything up that resembled news copy.

As I write this, I’m fine physically. There’s no lasting damage – although I wonder how much longer it would have taken before I had suffered some sort of lasting physical damage to my being. And if I could have mentally justified it.

I happen to know that when my father found out what I had done, he let it be known he thought his son was stupid (and didn’t get paid enough) for enduring such a brief moment.

BUT IT IS something I justify doing on the grounds that I’m trying to get the details, no matter how minute, about this historic day in Chicago history. Literally one in which our minus-50 degree figure will be regarded as the coldest ever in city history.

Also one where I lost count of the number of wiseacres who felt compelled to post blurbs on Facebook saying that Chicago was colder than both the North AND South poles. Even though news reports indicate we'll be back up to about 40 degrees by Monday.

Carmelo (left) and Rocco had enough sense Wednesday to 'do their business' within a minute, before racing back inside for the warmth of home

That may be factually true. But it doesn’t change much about the reality that I felt compelled to be outdoors (even though for just several five-minute bursts of time throughout the day) on this day when people who think they’re more sensible than myself made a day of doing as little as possible – and enjoying the likelihood that their employers told them to take the day off.

One final thought; will we remember this day come the summertime when we have one of those 100 degree-plus days and we’re complaining about how much we’re roasting – while thinking that a quickie blast of air from the polar vortex would somehow be a shot of relief.

  -30-

Brrrrrr! It’s cold outside. Or, only 90 more days till baseball Opening Day

As I write this, it’s 10 degrees outside, with the potential to rise to 14 degrees. Wind chill will create conditions that supposedly will make it feel more like 1 or 2 degrees temperature.

Rocco, Carmelo cope w/ winter weather

In short, this lull of a week between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays is friggin’ freezing. This week during which many people will look for any excuse they can find to get out of work is provided with a perfect excuse by Mother Nature.

IT’S COLD OUTSIDE!!!

There’s no reason why human beings should be outdoors if they can possibly avoid it. The perfect time to do as little as is humanly possible.

For some people, it’s the perfect excuse to contemplate finding some other region of the globe to live in – some place where the idea of the temperatures ever dropping below 32 degrees (the official standard point at which water freezes into ice) is just a bad nightmare.

I’m not necessarily talking about some place with sunshine and perpetual 70 degree temperatures. Just some place where taking the dogs out for a walk doesn’t put one at risk for hypothermia.

Even he's shivering

I BRING UP that example because I often do wind up taking my father’s pair of dogs (a Standard Poodle and a mixed-breed Golden Retriever/Poodle) out for their daily walk.

While I have noticed they still get excited at the thought of being able to go outside, all it takes is one blast of the Arctic-like air for them to immediately change their minds.

I’m amused at how quickly the dogs (Rocco and Carmelo) are now capable of doing their “business” before they suddenly give every indication that they want to go back inside. Back home. No more of this aimless wandering that they usually do because “it’s outside.”

It makes me wonder if dogs can have more sense than people, or at least some individuals, based on their public behavior.

With holidays over, we do countdown to spring

YES, I FEEL the cold temperatures, just as much as anybody else. Even my neighbor with the elaborately-decorated front yard came up with something appropriate -- an inflatable snowman that shivers because it's so cold!

Yet I have to confess something – maybe it’s evidence that I’m losing it. But I don’t feel the urge to want to flee Chicago, or the Midwestern U.S., just because it’s cold outside!

I still remember one December I spent in Florida just over three decades ago – the idea of a swimming pool at that time of year just seemed strange. And listening to the locals complain about the cold because for a couple of days the temperatures dipped into the mid-30s?

It elicited the same reaction I get whenever I hear reports of snowfall in the Southern U.S. bringing daily life to a standstill – What a bunch of wimps!!!

IT’S COLD OUTSIDE; I’ll be the first to admit it. But it truly is part of the natural cycle of life on this planet to have the seasons. Finding a place where it never freezes is the extreme of life – just as a place like Antarctica is the opposite end (a land of perpetual winter).

We’re in the cycle of life – about to end the current calendar year. And for what it’s worth, we’ve passed the point where the days are getting shorter and the sun sets about 4:30 p.m. Minute by minute, we’re getting extra daylight and moving toward the time period in which we’ll have the mild temperatures that make life truly sweet and pleasant.

Besides, if we’re to be totally honest, we’ve managed to avoid the most annoying part of winter weather – the slop of snowfall. That downpour we got on Sunday (a.k.a., Christmas Eve) was over by day’s end and wasn’t that hard to clean up.

It won't be long before springtime returns, even to Chicago

It added to the winter ambiance that we’ll be able to remember fondly come May. Besides, it’s only 90 more days ‘til Opening Day for Major League Baseball – a thought to keep in mind if the wintry weather conditions become too unbearable.

  -30-

We really were Number 1 (as in degrees, Fahrenheit) on Wednesday

When I woke up Wednesday, the television got tuned quickly to the Weather Channel, where after listening to some sissy Atlantans complain about cold and snow a report came along from Chicago indicating the current temperature was 1 degree.

What a depressing thought. One mere degree!!!

THE NATIONAL WEATHER Service indicated that the day did warm up slightly – Jan. 7, 2015 officially had a high temperature of 6 degrees recorded at O’Hare International Airport.

But the fact is it is cold out there. And not just winter weather cold (we’re used to that). I’m talking about hazardous to one’s life cold, if one doesn’t have enough sense to take precautions. What went through the heads of all those “Polar Bear” types (the ones who insist on taking a New Year’s Day swim) is beyond me.

Many school districts, including the Chicago Public Schools, have cancelled classes the past two days. In fact, the Chicago schools made the call Wednesday afternoon that they were going to remain closed for Thursday.

Which has led to complaints from people who seem determined to find something to gripe about. Stupid school administrators turning our kids into sissies who can’t cope with a little cold weather.

AS THEY WANT to see it, the snowfall stopped days ago, the streets are largely cleared, and they want to view it as ridiculous that kids can’t make a short walk to school – no matter how cold the temperature is.

Which is something I’ll have to admit seems unusual. Although I found it amusing the Facebook-posted observation of one of my former City News Bureau of Chicago counterparts who recalled winters past of having to check with stores on snow shovel sales as part of weather story coverage. If only that were a significant issue this week.

This winter and last may have seen schools close more than I recall schools closing back the entire time I was still required to get a basic education (which was the 1970s and early 1980s).

I recall the winter of 1977 in junior high school because that was a particularly cold spell for Chicago. I recall the school closings, and listening to local radio stations in suburban Lansing and Hammond, Ind., to see if our local schools were closed.

I STILL HAVE the memories of the day where the temperature dipped to about zero, yet my school district did NOT close. Although as I recall, my mother felt it was ridiculous for me to make the roughly six-block walk in that kind of temperature, and she had me and my brother (who had about a two-block walk to his school) stay home.

She wound up writing me the note for my teacher that basically said “Please excuse Gregory. It was too cold to send him to school.”

Believe it or not, the teachers accepted that, and my absence that day was excused.

But what really sticks in my memory is that winter temperatures were in the 30s to 20s (in degrees, Fahrenheit). The number of days that dipped below zero were truly rare.

IT IS WHY I find it bizarre the number of such frigid days we have experienced in recent years.

It also makes me think that the people who are complaining that the schools are closed are ones who have overly-heated offices to work out of, and probably have the heat in their cars turned up full-blast!

If, by chance, they had to shovel their own sidewalks, they’re probably now griping beyond belief once they got back inside their homes.

In my case, I have worked from home this week. I haven’t really had to go outside – except to check the mailbox to see if the proverbial paycheck is “in the mail” and which bills will eat up every single penny of it!

SO PERHAPS I’M willing to give those school officials some understanding on why it might not be best to expect so many kids to converge on their buildings on days like this week. I also feel sympathy for the mail carrier whose job required him to trudge to my front door on a daily basis.

The last thing we need is an increase in frostbite cases that need to be reported on – or other illnesses being triggered by the Arctic-like temperatures we’re now facing in Chicago.

  -30-

No weather-related complaints here!

I don't want to hear any complaints from people concerning the weather.


I'm talking about the fact that it is expected to be hot Tuesday. Temperatures in the 90s, with other factors in play that make it feel more like 100 degrees.


BOY, THAT'S HOT!!!!


But I can't help but find it refreshing. Because I still recall Jan. 6 and those other days early in 2014 when we got hit with Arctic-like temperatures. That was cold. And messy with the frozen snowfall.


Besides, this is summertime in Chicago. It's supposed to get hot this time of year.


Not that I objected to the cool breezes of recent days. They were relaxing. But Tuesday's heat blast across the Midwestern U.S. seems more like a jolt of reality.


THAT, AND THE fact that Chicago has two ball clubs with losing records, with a mediocre football team scheduled to begin training camp next week, means that all is right with the world in the Second City.


Which means instead of whining about the weather, we ought to focus our attention on learning to pronounce "Bourbonnais." Lest we want to sound buffoonish in our upcoming rants about the Bears.


  -30-

We're Number 3!!! Can we go higher?

So much for the spring-like weekend!

Snowfall on the marquee?

We got hit with a massive late-winter snowstorm (officially 3.6 inches, but some parts of the metro area experienced with nearly double that) that put the Chicago-area snowfall total this winter to just over 79 inches.

THAT OFFICIALLY MAKES the winter of 2013-14 the third-most when it comes to snowfall in the amount of time that records have been kept.

This is in March, where I'll admit I often tune my television to the MLB-TV channel to catch parts of spring training baseball games. Not that I care who wins these exhibitions filled with minor leaguers delusional enough to think they can make the "big club" this spring.

It's more because I like to see that there's a place where the weather is sunny and clear and winter snow isn't much of a concern.

But as I saw pointed out on the Weather Channel Wednesday morning, the second-most amount of snow for a Chicago winter was that one of 1978-79 (I was in junior high school back then). With just over 82 inches.

ARE WE GOING to top that mark? Could we become Number Two. Could we get another blast (we'd need roughly 10 more inches) that would make us Number One in something?

For the record, winter has exactly one more week to go. Or so the calendar says. Because March 20 is the point at which the planet Earth reaches the point in its rotation that the northern hemisphere is too far along for there to be much more winter weather.

Although those of us who have lived here our entire lives know it's not unheard of for there to be an early April snowfall. Who's to say we couldn't get a few more inches?

Snow taller than MJ? But he could leap it

This is one record that I'm sure nobody wants to see surpassed. We'd be more than content to have this winter be Number Three. Heck, we'd have been happy if it could have remained Number Four!

PERSONALLY, I COULD have done without the Wednesday morning sight of the aforementioned Weather Channel having one of their reporter-types standing out on State Street next to a pile of pizza boxes (deep dish, of course) piled up to 79 inches high.

Taller than the reporter-type (who hit as many cliches as possible by doing her broadcast standup in front of the Chicago Theater with its famed marquee) herself.

All she would have had to do was point out that the official snowfall (as measured at O'Hare International Airport) is about an inch taller than the famed Michael Jordan himself.

Then again, she may be the type who believes that basketball was invented by LeBron James.

PERSONALLY, I FEEL fortunate about this latest storm.

I didn't have to be anyplace Tuesday night when the storm started. By the time I had to leave on Wednesday, the official winter storm warning was over and assorted municipal public works crews had cleared the streets to the point where they were as passable as they could hope to be.

I just had to dodge idiot drivers who just don't seem to get that weather impacts the way one ought to drive.

This particular winter is one I will not forget. For all I know, some three or four decades from now I'll be old and decrepit and perhaps suffering from Alzheimer's Disease without a clue about who I am or anything I ever did -- but I'll be rambling on and on about how cold and sloppy it has been the past few months.

NOTABLE BECAUSE I usually don't get bothered by the cold temperatures (I just put on another layer to keep warm). It is the snow and the slop it creates that bothers me more; in part because I detest having to shovel it -- I feel fortunate to have a landlord these days who is attentive to his property.

But the repeated days of the Arctic-like temperatures made life all the more complicated this season. It was cold enough to be notable that we weren't just in a typical 10-degree winter temperature. Twenty-below is not easily forgotten! It would be creation's great joke to give us one last burst of snow before finally ending for the year.

What are the chances of a significant snowfall on March 31 (a.k.a., Opening Day for the Chicago White Sox)? Reminiscent of the first home game the Toronto Blue Jays ever played in 1977.

I'm amazed Bill Veeck never thought of having his ball club playing in the snow in their  uniform shorts. That would have been a memorable stunt!

Remember the sight of the Sox in their Bill Veeck-era uniforms dodging snowflakes coming down during the ballgame? It's a good thing the ball club left their shorts behind that particular day.

-30-

We got a warning; will we follow it?

All the winter weather forecasts we have received in recent days have made me think back to July of 1995 – specifically that five-day period in mid-month when the weather became so hot that the number of heat-related fatalities shot up significantly.

 

What I remember of that heat wave was one particular pundit describing it as an anomaly in which – for a few days – weather conditions shifted to the point where Chicago became Saudi Arabia.

AS IN FOR those days, we had the kind of heat they routinely experience in the deserts of the Middle East. There, the locals know how to cope with it.

In Chicago, we were caught off guard – resulting in the 485 official fatalities due to the heat (and the city Health Department estimate that some 739 people in excess of the norm had died).

Now what does any of this have to do with the extreme cold we’re expected to suffer through in coming days?

For all I know, some people are looking at the prospect of a “20-below” temperature (as in Fahrenheit, not Celsius) and wishing they could have a blast of 100-degree-plus heat. The Chicago Teachers Union on Sunday was already demanding that the Chicago Public Schools be closed, and schools officials complied late in the afternoon.

BUT MY POINT is that we’re getting a jolt of weather that usually isn’t typical for this part of Planet Earth. I’ve seen the term “Chi-beria” used to describe what Chicago will experience (as in Siberia), while others are saying we will have temperatures lower than the Arctic Circle.

As in the North Pole.

 

 

No wonder Santa Claus makes a point of rushing around the world to give away presents. He’s freezing his red-clad butt off the rest of the year.

We’re going to be cold. We’re being advised to stay indoors as much as possible. A brief trip to the supermarket on Saturday saw me having to deal with endless lines – even though I was just trying to use the “express” to pick up a couple of items.

 

 

I WASN’T ALONE in wanting to NOT have to make the trip (which in my case can be as short as a one-block walk to a Jewel, longer if I choose to shop at a different store) in the potential chill of 10-below.

Let’s only hope that people have not only been paying attention to these advance reports, but that they’re taking them seriously.

I’m sure we’ll have a few people who are convinced that the weather reports are a whole lot of hype, and will say to themselves, “How cold could it actually get?” If too many people take that kind of attitude, that is when we have the potential for the body count to increase.

Although I’ll be willing to concede the one significant difference between the two situations.

MUCH OF THE body count in 1995 was among elderly people who lived “shut-in” type lives who should have got out of their inadequately-cooled homes and found some place cooler to pass the time.

The coming days will be a case where we all will be encouraged to live the “shut-in” lifestyle. So long as we don’t get some sort of outage that causes people to lose heat, we should be capable of coping.

Except that in severe weather, there’s always the possibility of an outage – and the fact that the inclement weather will interfere with emergency crew efforts to rectify the problem.

The real question might be whether we experience a record low – bottoming, so to speak, the conditions of Jan. 20, 1985. That was when a 27-below temperature combined with 25 mile-per-hour winds for a wind chill of 77-below.

WE GOT THROUGH that blast (also from the Arctic that swept its way across the nation, just like what’s happening this week). I’m sure we’ll make it through this one too -- and hopefully without any record-setting for fatalities.

 

 

Even if it means we’re going to have to put up with exaggerated stories for decades to come from people feeling the need to prove their fortitude by telling us of how they braved the cold of the coming days.

  -30-

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Take your pick. It's thoughts of "Summertime" coming in just a few months that will get me through the next few days! Or, you can consider Gov. Pat Quinn's advice for coping with the next few days.

Grateful to be cooped up indoors (for a change) on this messiest of New Year’s

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve got no place to go

Let it snow? Let it snow! Let it snow!                                    

  -0-

Whodathunk the New Year holiday season would have its own song. Even if it’s technically an appropriation of a Christmas holiday song.

My guide for coping with winter storm Hercules

For that first line from “Let it snow” was what came to my mind when I looked out the window to see the snowfall that has been falling off-and-on since Tuesday night.

AND I AM fortunate to be in a part of the Chicago metropolitan area that didn’t get hit with nearly a foot of snow. It has been just a couple of inches for me.

Reading and seeing the news reports of nearly a foot of snow in some parts of metro Chicago (which technically is a part of the “winter storm Hercules” that is sweeping itself this week across the northern part of the nation) made me feel grateful.

As was the fact that I am reduced these days to sporadic employment – often done from home.

I didn’t have to endure the commute to work that likely would have made me ridiculously late, and would have caused me to have to endure a rant from some boss who would want to blame everybody around him for inclement weather.

FOR THOSE OF you who had to put up with someone so nonsensical, I feel for you.

I wish I could say I spent the day watching this...

Although to be technical, I didn’t spend my Thursday cuddled up in front of a fire. Part of the day I spent in front of a laptop computer grinding out copy – including this very commentary you’re reading now.

I did have a television going for part of the day, tuned part of the day to The Weather Channel – where Stephanie Abrams, among others, convinced me that I was not alone in coping with heavy snowfall that will turn by week’s end to sub-zero-degree temperatures.

... instead of this

I also must confess to watching portions of a pair of cheesy films – “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Detroit Rock City,” which not only make me wish it were possible to buy back that portion of time in my life so I could use it more wisely but also makes me wonder if actors Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong wish they could somehow erase those films from being a drag on their careers.

ALTHOUGH IF IT turns out that watching a part of two bad films was the low part of my Thursday, then I shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t any worse than the guy who was doing an awful “Harry Caray” impersonation on MLB-TV.

Besides, I’m sure there are people out there who had miserable days; problems aggravated all the more by the inclement weather.

I was fortunate enough to be able to use a miserable day to add to a general tone of relaxation in the final days before we all have to get back to work following New Year’s Day. And the leftover ham and potato salad was actually an enjoyable weather shut-in meal.

Which because the holiday came near the beginning of a week allows the most unadventurous of us to turn Christmas and New Year’s into a nearly two-week-long period of slothness.

Leftover ham and potato salad; the shut-in meal!

I ONLY HOPE they were relaxed enough that they were able to pull out the shovel on Thursday and clear their own sidewalks and other areas around their house – without thinking that such actions entitle them to a parking space in front of their house, even though the streets are public property!

Because aside from the nonsense concept of “dibs,” the last thing we need is more people who think they don’t have to do anything because Mother Nature and the Sun will eventually make the slop of snowfall melt away.

  -30-

Feeling fine for weak winter weather, while wondering what awaits us

We’re most definitely in winter. The calendar tells me that, and the light flaking of snow I see on the ground out of my living room window provides circumstantial evidence of such.

Yet we all have to confess that we have not been hit with anything near what winter weather is supposed to be like.

WE DON’T HAVE the heavy snowfall that accumulates. In fact, I can only remember one day of anything resembling significant snow.

Which is why on Tuesday, the Chicago metro area actually tied a record – 319 straight days without at least one inch of snow falling. The total amount of snow we’ve seen this winter comes to 1 1/3 inches, but that is when you add up each and every trace of snow that has come along.

Wednesday will be the day we set a new record. And if the weather forecasts are even the least bit accurate, temperatures are going to get to spring-like 50-degree-type weather by the weekend – which amuses me because I’m supposed to attend a family gathering on Saturday.

Those relatives of mine whom I did not see on Christmas will be gathering at an aunt’s house for sort of a belated holiday celebration. One last bit of Christmas before all the decorations have to come down.

AND EVEN IT won’t be a White Christmas!

Even the temperatures have been mild – we haven’t gone below 10 degrees at all this winter season.

In short, we haven’t been hit with traditional Midwestern winter. Although I have to admit that making these statements makes me wonder if I’m tempting fate.

For I am among those who enjoy watching The Weather Channel (particularly when it’s meteorologist Jen Carfagno giving the forecast) and seeing how the weather trends are passing throughout the nation.

OTHER PARTS OF the United States have been getting hit with snow and cold temperatures. I particularly noticed that one heavy storm of about a week ago that went from the southwest, passed through Southern Illinois and central Indiana (including Indianapolis) and into the northeastern part of the United States.

Meanwhile, people in Wisconsin have been hit with their own winter storms. It seems that to the north and to the south of us, it is a traditional winter.

Yet here in Chicago, we’re being spared!

Perhaps I should be the optimist and feel thankful for the fact that we’re not now facing temperatures below zero while also being buried in snowdrifts that cover our cars and cause us to be stranded.

I STILL RECALL the heavy snowfall in a 24-hour time-period that fell in February 2011. It was a couple of days of chaos, and took about a week before my life’s routine was fully back in place.

Which means the cynic in me wonders what kind of misery are we going to be hit with come February or March – to make up for the mild weather we’re facing now.

Perhaps I’m panicking for nothing. I certainly hope so. Although I suppose there’s the other side of the equation that will argue this mild weather is some sort of evidence that we’re facing Global Warming – that our whole weather system is out of whack and that we have caused long-range damage.

That is an even more-depressing thought; one I would prefer not to have to have these days.

I AM COUNTING down the days until mid-February – the traditional beginning of baseball spring training. It usually serves as a good mark in time that the worst of winter weather is over.

All I know is that if we get hit with that major storm come March 4 (which would be the one-year mark from the last time we got hit with any significant snowfall), my guess is that it is what people will remember – and not the fact that we are setting all kinds of records in recent weeks for mild weather in the greater Chicago area.

  -30-

“Hot, Hot, Hot” has nothing these days to do with Buster Poindexter

I missed the intense heat wave of 1995. That period of scorching summer when the city was so unprepared that the death toll shot up faster than the thermometer occurred back during the time I lived in Springfield, Ill.

Chicago's theme music these days?



But I read the reports and heard the stories from my brother and mother, who were here back then.

SO I CAN appreciate the fact that while these past few days have been immensely uncomfortable, we should be thankful that we don’t have an absurd death toll mounting higher and higher.

That comes even though we may set an all-time record, as forecasts on Friday were saying that Saturday’s official temperature for Chicago would exceed 100 degrees. That would be a fourth straight day of temperatures in the century mark.

And it has been a miserable string of days.

It has been a time period in which I am thankful to be a freelance writer who works from home. It reduces the amount of time I have to spend in the outdoors.

ALTHOUGH I DID have to venture outside at one point Thursday night to cover a news event for a suburban newspaper I do some work for. It was early evening, and I still wound up with notes soaking wet from my sweat. When I finally got back home, the steering wheel of my car was dripping from my perspiration.

And I couldn’t help but notice when I checked the weather forecast Friday morning, I learned that it already was 91 degrees – and allegedly felt more like 104 degrees, on a day when the temperature was forecast to reach 101 (and in reality reached 103 degrees at O'Hare International Airport by mid-day).

It has been a miserable few days. And the thought that keeps going through my mind these days is to wonder how people survived prior to the invention of air conditioning.

Even if this is a record-high and not the norm (1911 and 1947 are the only other years that Chicago had three straight days of 100-degree temperatures) for a Chicago summer, we still experience heat each and every year.

BUT IT SEEMS that no matter how much we feel miserable, we should be a little bit thankful.

Because like I have already stated, we don’t have much of a body count running yet  -- six deaths overall as of Friday night, which is barely more than the five shooting deaths that occurred Wednesday on Independence Day from hot-headed people who shouldn't be allowed near firearms, regardless of what the NRA thinks the Second Amendment means.

There have been people who have died during the past few days, but it does not appear that we have any deaths that were brought on solely by the heat.

Maybe it means we learned the lessons of ’95. At the very least, everybody seems to be aware of the concept of a “cooling center” – that special place where people can go if either they don’t have air conditioning, or it isn’t quite working properly in their homes.

ALTHOUGH IN MY case, I must confess to having adequate air conditioning AND a portable fan (which was a birthday gift from my mother just a couple of months before she died) blowing air directly on me while I work.

Which is about the only thing that has made these past few days bearable (and probably the only reason I haven’t shorted out my laptop computer with excess sweat while I write copy).

That, and one other fact. I keep seeing those long-term weather forecasts that tell me the temperatures will take a (relatively) dramatic plunge in the next few days.

Temperatures in the 80s is still summertime warm. I won’t be basking in the outdoors and shivering from the breezes.

BUT IT WILL be a notable drop – one that won’t feel quite so stuffy as though I’m being asked to inhale cotton when I breathe.

How good does this look right about now?

And when we get back to a time when we have sunny skies AND cool breezes, I think I will appreciate it all the more.

I know the weather has become extreme when I’m looking forward to the day when I can wear my leather jacket without having people around me look at me like I’m insane.

  -30-

No air?!? Hiding from the humidity. Or will Marilyn’s heat burn their lips?

I happened to be at a government building in the Chicago suburbs this week when one of the local aldermen walked up to me and whispered in my ear that he had a “scoop” for me.

His city is in the process of putting together its budget for the current fiscal year, and he said that one way to save a whole heck of a lot of money would be to totally eliminate the budgetary line item that pays for air conditioning.

“JUST THINK OF how much money we’re spending right now,” he quipped.

Now I say “quipped” because I realize that particular alderman was joking. There’s no way that government building – or any building, for that matter – would have been bearable this week had it not had the air conditioning running.

At that particular moment, I had just entered the suburban City Hall and was soaked with sweat because of the walk from my car parked a half-block away and the building. At that particular moment, temperatures were so high that the heat index was registering just under 100 degrees.

It was hot. And it was humid. A combination that results in a disgusting feel to the air, an uncomfortable feel to the skin and the potential for people to become serious ill if they have some stubborn streak that makes them think of air conditioning as some sort of evil.

IT SEEMS THAT we have learned the Lessons of 1995, when for a couple of weeks that summer temperatures and conditions reached such intense levels that I once heard someone describe the situation by saying that for those weeks, Chicago became Saudi Arabia.

Because I haven’t heard tons of stories of mass fatalities around the Chicago area. Although the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if both Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel had some advance warning that let them know this was the perfect week to schedule trips taking them out of the Midwest (Emanuel in New York, and Quinn in Israel).

Perhaps it means that we’re doing a better job of being aware of the dangers, and that we’re checking up more thoroughly on those individuals in our society who might otherwise be at risk.

In fact, a part of me has thought this week about my mother, who passed away last year just before Thanksgiving. She would have been miserable this week, and I’m sure the heat would have left her feeling weak.

A PART OF me is thankful that she is not suffering from the heat and humidity, or having to endure what all of us coped with this past week.

Personally, I spent as much time as I could indoors – usually as close as I possibly could to a fan. As I write this commentary Friday night, I have a fan blowing about four feet to my right.

It is keeping the air circulating sufficiently that I feel comfortable (although the fan’s built-in thermometer tells me the current temperature in this room is 86 degrees). When one considers that I also have a bottle of water chilled cold about two feet to the left of me that I routinely reach for to take a sip now and then, I can’t complain too much right now.

But I’m well aware of the fact that many people have to do their work outdoors in the brunt of the heat. Heck, the couple of reporter-type assignments I have undertaken that forced me outside left me in a serious need for a change of clothes and a quick shower once I got home.

WHICH MEANS I did my part to contribute to excess water use. Although the alternative would have been to sleep in my sweat and stink.

Then again, I had it better than my brother, Chris, who on his job this week was shifted to a rare week of overnight (9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) shifts.

Some might mistakenly think he escaped the brunt of the heat, since it meant he was asleep in an air conditioned room throughout the days. Yet this was a week so ridiculously hot that even overnight, the heat index was still in the 90s.

When added to the fact that he works in a place that typically is hot, even in mid-winter, there simply was no escaping this heat wave.

BUT THEN I think back to Feb. 1-2 and the nearly two feet of snowfall we got hit with in a 24-hour period. I still recall having to help my brother push his car through the snow when it became stuck in a drift. And I wonder how many people total suffered serious injury because emergency crews had trouble getting to them because of all that snow.

I hate snow even more than I despise the heat.

In fact, there’s only one bit of this heat that I have to admit I find humorous – the fact that this is the first week of that hideous-looking Marilyn Monroe statue on Michigan Avenue. I understand that many people are posing in front of the statue, having their photographs taken while groping or kissing Marilyn’s thighs.

Let those juvenile buffoons kiss her all they want. Maybe it means they’ll burn their lips.

  -30-