I know it’s cold outside but the lake effect never paralyzed us. Except for that one time in 1977.

I took a walk yesterday.  Needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air and some perspective even though it was cold and a bit windy. I’d been feeling claustrophobic since we had about three feet of snow dumped on us last week.  Paying the price for the extremely warm fall as the lake is warm and wide open, creating the perfect conditions for lake effect.  As I was navigating snow drifts and ice chunks left behind on the sidewalks from the village’s sidewalk plow I got to contemplating, as I usually do while traversing the village, about the way things used to be.  

The recent emergence of actual winter weather, which we used to experience here on the lake plain and glacier ridge of Lake Erie from November until March, is unusual these days.  We don’t get winter the way we once did. Instead we get random storms or “events” that paralyze the entire region.  Unless there’s a Bills game.  Weather does not prevent anyone from going to Bills games.  Other than that, every single thing, every Christmas event,  school classes, concerts, lectures, everything was cancelled. Yes, I know snowstorms are different today – I believe in climate change. And I AM NOT advocating that anyone put themselves in danger.  I want people to be safe and alive after a snowstorm.  However, it’s so strange to me that at one time we in western New York prided ourselves on our hardiness in the face of that icy cold wind blowing off the lake, and congratulated ourselves for knowing how to handle two wheel, sometimes rear wheel, drive vehicles in feet of snow.  Not anymore.  We have lost whatever we had that gave us the ability to easily adapt to changing weather.  Is it  because we don’t have an entire season of winter any more and our brains have forgotten how to deal? Is it because most young people moved away and most of the people left around here are north of fifty and it’s too difficult for them to manage the snow?  I can’t figure it out.

What I was reminiscing about was how forty or more years ago my friends and I would walk everywhere. Walking from my house anywhere was a pretty good hike. I lived on the southern end of the village and up the hill from downtown. It never occurred to me that walking into town was a hardship. I did it all the time; winter, spring, summer and fall. To the Plaza, to the college, to the high school; everywhere. There was simply no way, absolutely no freaking way, we let the weather get in our way of walking to get out of the house. We’d walk to the Plaza to shop at Sidey’s department store or Record Giant, or to go see a movie at The Cine’. We’d walk downtown to The Hub and to The Bomber House. We’d walk to the skating pond.  And you can be damn sure we didn’t let the weather get in the way of walking to party.  

Trudging through snow drifts brought back memories of my friends and I making our way to another friend’s house in similar conditions.  He had a basement room that we could access from outside without going into the house.  We called it The Den of Iniquity- or The Den for short.  He had a waterbed and a huge poster of Jim Morrison on the wall and he seemed to always have easy access to beer.  We spent a good amount of time partying in The Den. After, we’d walk to the high school on the other side of town to watch a basketball game.  Sometimes we’d drink in the snow in the cemetery before walking to the movie theater.  This was the early 80s.  There was no “tech” gear. I wore a pair of rust colored suede booties from Endicott Johnson that were neither warm nor waterproof,  a “ski jacket” from JCPenney, jeans, cotton mittens and a hat probably knit by an older-lady family friend.  Everyone else was dressed similarly.  I don’t think fleece had been invented yet and neither had Thermolite.  We did not know that “cotton kills”.   If we needed extra warmth we wore two pairs of jeans, one pulled on over the other. And that was it.  Out into the elements we went.  We thought nothing of it and neither did our parents.  Of course they didn’t know we were going to drink.  

Once we were old enough to drive, that changed everything. And nothing.  Blizzard conditions did not prevent us from getting to wherever the party was.  A friend’s family owned a summer cottage in a small lakeside community about twenty five minutes from here and he would have parties at Christmas time when everybody was back in town from college. Epic parties. In snowstorms.  There are pictures. I won’t share them. We had a friend who was always the designated driver because she had the amazing ability to seem sober even after drinking. For this reason we trusted her to get us to the parties and back safely.  And she did.  We were lucky no one was ever hurt or in an accident. Thank you, guardian angels.

And when we were of legal drinking age (or maybe a year younger with a fake ID)  weather didn’t stop us from going to the bars downtown. There were always mountains of snow along the street curb that you had to climb over to get to the sidewalks.  And by that time, we were wearing party outfits that were definitely not appropriate for snowy conditions, but alas, that did not prevent us from getting to the action. I remember going to The Caboose on Main Street, a bar that had an actual red caboose as its facade.  To enter you had to navigate down a series of steps that were treacherous because they were slick. But we did it, damnit, because we were dying to pretend we were adults, hanging out drinking shots of Rumplemintz or Ouzo in a basement that had a sticky floor and reeked of stale beer.  You know, like real adults did. 

So, of course what I’m getting at is Where are all the kids?: the winter version.  As usual I never see young people out and about.  Not during the day, not in the evenings.  Sidewalks are mostly devoid of anyone besides middle aged people walking their dogs. I sincerely hope the young’uns are having fun somewhere, plotting a revolution, forgetting their burdens, laughing and enjoying their youth, listening to some kick ass jams, or making some kick ass jams.  We sure as hell did.  And we’re lucky to still be around pondering where all the kids are today and whether we should stay in and drink a beer or take a gummy while sitting by the fireplace.