How cold is it where you are? (long)

Well, it’s been pretty cold here in Philly.

Yesterday, my eldest son called me from the train station. He takes the regional train to his High School each day.

He said, “Dad, can you come pick me up? It’s really cold”.

I held the phone away from my ear so I wouldn’t get wet from the dripping whine.

Now, just the day before he and I had talked about the upcoming ski season. I told him that there would be few, if any, ski trips because money was tight with the new baby and all.

He understood, but said that he really, really, really, loved skiing, and really, really, really, loved being out in the cold in the winter, and how good and character building it was.

So yesterday I said back to him in the phone, “Just pretend that you’re skiing down Lincoln Drive and get your butt home”.

This all made me reminisce about my childhood in upstate New York in the sixties. We had the same wonderful Lake Effect winters that marmadday so enjoys these days. Only in the sixties, they were ten times as harsh wonderful.

It was so cold, that if you tried to write your name in the snow, assuming you were a boy, your pee would turn into ice before it hit the ground.

It was so cold, that if you cried during the day your eyes would freeze shut and you’d be blind until you got home that night and could warm them by the fire, assuming that your family could afford wood or coal.

And that was in the summer. Winters were worse.

Now the grammar school I attended, Our Lady of Czestohowa, was a ten mile round trip walk, uphill each way. I made that walk every school day for nine years, starting with the first day of kindergarten.

It was so cold in the winter that often a student would walk into class in the morning and a body part would just drop off. Usually, it was an ear, or a finger, or a toe. Don’t ask about the boys who tried writing their name in the snow on the way to school.

One time Mietek Pilek walked into class with an entire iron gate still attached to his tongue. He had tried licking the gate, and his brother had to remove it at the hinges and help carry it to school.

Whenever someone would have a body part fall off, Sister would carefully wrap it in a tissue and put it in her desk until noontime. Then the student would take the little package to the school nurse, who would heat it up and then sew it back on.

One time, Mikey Karczewski lost his right thumb to the cold. At lunch, Sister inadvertently gave him a relic from Saint Eileenka that she also kept in her desk. It was her big toe. Saint Eileenka had suffered from endema before she died, so this toe was huge.

To this day, the toe still looks funny on Mikey, although it served him well when he hitchhiked across the country in the late seventies. There were several reports of miraculous healings by some of the drivers who picked him up.

Occasionally, the school nurse would be out. When that happened, we took it as an opportunity to learn self-reliance and teamwork.

After sitting the student with the missing part down, we would warm up the frozen piece. To do this, someone would run to the cafeteria to get two hot dogs, or two fish sticks if it was Friday. Then we’d hold the item between the two pieces of food until it came up to body temperature.

After that, it was time to sew it back on. Luckily, in those days, embroidery was huge among the girls. So, there was always a needle and thread handy.

Often, it was Sofia Josefina Hapanowicz who took care of the stitching. We called her Happy for short. She went on to be a surgeon at Johns Hopkins.

I myself have a piece of ear that had to be sewn back on because of the cold. It was one of those days when the nurse was out. The outside part of it has been miraculously healed. I think that is because Mikey was there that day. But there still is a scar on the inside

At the time, Happy was embroidering an entire set of throw pillows using Bible stories as a theme. To this day, if you pull back my right ear, you can see the scar as well as a little scene from the middle part of the Wedding at Cana that she included. You know, that’s the one where Jesus turned water into wine because they had run out.

Well, I told all of this to my son. He looked at me with that look that told me how cool he though I was. At least I think that’s what rolling your eyes means. I get it confused with being wide eyed.

I said, “Yup, and that’s why today I don’t mind the snow. Indeed, I try never to complain about anything. Because you see, Son, that day I learned a valuable lesson. Whenever times get hard and the going gets tough and I want to breakdown and complain, I think about that little scene of the middle of the Wedding at Cana, permanently stitched on the back of my right ear.

Because as you know,
In the middle of the Wedding at Cana there was no whine!”

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