Minnesota in December - Lovely

It's always exciting when Minnesota makes the national news for a snowstorm. This weekend's blizzard caught the attention of the major networks even before the Metrodome collapsed, which worked out perfectly for all involved, since it not only gave new stadium proponents an argument, but also created the best metaphor for a franchise's season in the history of the NFL.

New York City really hasn't seen any snow at all yet, aside from a flurry, but it will certainly arrive soon enough, most likely the day I'm flying back to Minnesota in a few weeks. I certainly don't miss Minnesota winters. It's not just the snow and it's not just the cold - it's when the snow and the cold combine forces to create misery and hermits. As an indoorsman who never went ice fishing, skiing or snowmobile riding - winter is basketball season, for watching, if not playing outdoors - I never enjoyed the activities that keep many Minnesotans sane from November through April.

In New York, snowstorms don't affect me because I never drive in them. That was always the worst part of storms in Minnesota, knowing that life and the games do go on (unless there's a roof collapse). In a regular storm you still have to drive. And, occasionally, even when no travel is recommended, you find yourself on the road, squinting and gripping, cursing and praying.

A few memorable storm moments:
* When I worked in Worthington, my friend John learned of a prime position outside of town for sledding. We planned a late-night excursion, fueled primarily by a love of sledding, but perhaps by some liquids. John drove us in his red jeep. The sledding was fine. Unfortunately, John's jeep didn't make the trip back to Worthington, at least not with him behind the wheel.

Somehow, after parking on the side of the road, he moved the wrong direction and got stuck, then compounded the problem by attempting to power out of the snow, causing even more damage to the beloved red vehicle. We were now stranded on a cold winter night. Fortunately, we had thought ahead and brought a cell phone from the newspaper office and called a co-worker t0 retrieve us. I'm not sure what we would have done without the phone. Cannibalism? By hour three that might have been the best option and then it would have been one-on-one combat, winner take all. John's a great cook. If he would have prevailed, he probably could have prepared a delightful meal out of my frozen limbs. But I was more athletic, so might have had an edge in the actual fight. Thankfully it didn't come to that, although the winner might have had a hell of a book deal out of the situation.

* My friend Mike didn't have a car at St. John's, which was fine. He didn't really need one. But one night in 1996, he visited his girlfriend on the St. Ben's campus, a few miles from Collegeville. A bad snowstorm hit the area that night. Also that evening, my roommate hosted a small party in our tiny dorm room.

Late in the night, Mike called and asked me to fetch him. The school had shut down the buses between campuses. His girlfriend served as an RA and was not allowed to have boys stay overnight. Mike now had to flee, in the same conditions Miss Beadle sent the children home in during the tragic Little House episode. He called me, asking - again - for my chauffeur services. Anxious to leave the dreadful party, I climbed into my faithful Beretta and made the short drive to St. Ben's. The snow-covered roads proved challenging, yet my dedication to friends knew no limits. I collected Mike and we slowly headed out of town. As I told Mike about the festivities in my dorm, I approached a stop sign. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions, I didn't stop. I blame Chevy's engineers. The Beretta slowly - slowly meaning about 2 miles per hour - slid past the stop sign and into the intersection. We hit another car in a collision that proved more pathetic than dangerous.

After the collision, I told Mike I had a beer or two back in the dorm room. Thinking quickly - almost as if he'd done this before, or at least seen it on an episode of Law & Order - Mike volunteered to say that he was driving. What a guy! What a friend! But I couldn't let a friend take the fall, even if it was his fault that he didn't have a car and even if it was his fault that he missed the last bus. I didn't think the beer would be an issue for whatever law enforcement member happened upon the sad little scene. The driver of the other car had a bad night. As a tow truck approached, he told us that the same truck had just pulled them out of a ditch. Which made me think: Okay, I'm at fault, I slid through the sign. But this guy just went into the ditch and now couldn't avoid a car going two miles an hour. Where are his winter driving skills?

Making the evening even stranger, his girlfriend - a passenger in the car - emerged, looked at Mike and told him she danced with him at a "barn dance" freshman year. She seemed like a lovely gal, but Mike gave the impression that she wasn't the type of girl you'd want to remember dancing with. They chatted, I spoke with the boyfriend, the police came, took their report, didn't even care about the condition of either driver and we went back to campus, where I spent the night listening to my roommate vomit while I contemplated how to tell my parents about the accident. God damn snowstorm. The story has a happy ending. The accident didn't cause my insurance to go up. And, perhaps of a bit more significance, Mike married that girl - Jodi, the one he visited that night at St. Ben's, not the girl in the other car - and they now have four kids. Mike also has his own car.

* Freshman year at Worthington Community College. The men's basketball team hosts powerful Minneapolis Community College in a key January game. A blizzard shuts everything down, the town and the interstate. Minneapolis ends up stranded in town for days. But the game goes on. We played in front of, perhaps, 10 fans. We won the game on a miracle shot at the buzzer, as our blonde, gangly 6-9 center hit a 15-foot jumper on the baseline while falling out of bounds. This is one of three sporting events of mine that my parents missed between 1982 and 1995. Still haven't forgiven them.

* A year later, I worked part-time at the Worthington Daily Globe. During the high school basketball playoffs, I traveled to Windom, about 30 minutes away, to cover a game. I drove over with my college coach, Mike Augustine. Terrible storm again. The games probably should have been canceled. On the way home, we stopped at a Hardee's for some drive-through ham 'n' cheese sandwiches. Again in my trusty Beretta, I pulled out onto Highway 60, which was four lanes for a few miles outside of Windom. I couldn't see anything but snow, while Augie consumed his meal next to me, completely oblivious to the road conditions. I wasn't completely sure I was on the right side of the road. Christ, could I have been going the wrong way on the four-lane? Thankfully, they put up big signs - like this one - that say WRONG WAY! I saw it and, after making sure there were no other cars coming - there weren't, since there were very few people dumb enough to be on the road that night - I turned around and had us in the correct lane.

* Three years ago we visited my parents in winter. February, I believe. One weekend, I decided to ride along with my dad from Janesville to Marshall, to watch my nephew's basketball game. Bad storms that day. Of course. Louise begged us not to go. She thought like a normal, rational person: There's a snowstorm, why would you drive two hours to watch a basketball game? We thought like Minnesotans: Why would we let a few flakes and a bit of wind keep us from watching a basketball game? Only a South African raised in the sun would consider these conditions dangerous. We headed out and discovered that the roads were worse than anticipated. Phone calls to my sister in Marshall proved unhelpful. Weather's great, she'd say. Roads are fine. Meanwhile, we couldn't see the road or any cars in front of us. Yet we plowed forward, thinking, maybe, just maybe, the South African knew what she was talking about. Eventually, after driving for a few hours at about 30 miles per hour, in conditions not fit for humans or vehicles, we turned around. This was a bad one. With my dad driving, I had to roll down the window to look out so I could tell him how close we were to the ditch. But we made it. We pulled into the garage and walked back into the house. My mom sat at the dining room table, happy to see us. Louise? She had taken to bed, convinced she was now a widow. She was overjoyed to see us, yet unhappy that we ignored her advice. But again, what's a South African know about driving in the snow?

* At the end of 1993, my cousin Matt had tickets to a Timberwolves game. I had to come from Worthington and would meet him and a couple of other friends in Janesville. From there, we'd drive to the Cities, first stopping Burnsville to pick up a girl Matt had been courting for months. The plan went into disarray when I went into the ditch with the Beretta just outside of Mountain Lake, more than an hour from Janesville. No cell phone then, of course. I managed to make a call from the office of the tow truck folks. My car was fine but I arrived in Janesville about two hours later than scheduled, putting a dent in Matt's love life and our plans to watch the whole Timberwolves game. Matt cursed me out the entire ride up to Minneapolis. I cursed him out as we drove aimlessly around Burnsville, searching for the house where the girl of his dreams lived.

"How can you not have directions to her house?"
"How could you go into the ditch?"
"Even if I hadn't gone in the ditch, we'd still be driving around looking for her house."

We finally found it and her. Impressing her even more, we made her drive into Minneapolis, since none of us had much experience driving in the big city. Certainly a low point for our collected masculinity. She proved a good sport and drove us to the Target Center, where we arrived late in the second quarter of the Timberwolves-Rockets game. I'd like to say this story had a happy ending, too. But the Timberwolves lost the game. And, eventually, though I'm sure it had nothing to do with our late arrival or our demand that she taxi us around the Twin Cities, the girl told Matt it might be better if they would just be friends.

He probably still blames my driving. I blame the snow.

Why South Africans and snow don't mix

It was about four years ago - a day after a snowstorm like the one that is hammering New York City tonight - that I severely damaged my wife's internal organs with an ice-packed weaponized snowball.

That's her version, anyway. Even after 10 years in America, Louise's African blood has yet to fully adapt to the change of seasons, specifically winter. She still has no concept of "cold," so each morning she asks what the temperature is going to be and then, "What does that mean," as if I have to translate ancient Greek text before she realizes it's time to break out the mittens.

"Well, it's going to be 25, but the wind's going to be really blowing, so it will be pretty brutal."

"What does brutal mean? Hat, gloves?"

Say brutal to someone from Minnesota - or perhaps nasty - and they'll know immediately that it's a day to spend inside or bundled up in layers outside. It means biting wind, a face that aches after about 10 feet of walking. But Louise needs specifics, charts, pictures of what can happen to the human body if exposed to wind chills of zero and below. It's a tough way for her to go through life, always wondering if she'll drop dead in a snowbank between December and March because she forgot to ask her winter-veteran husband what to wear.

Winters have tortured her since her arrival to the country in March 1999. She flew into New York, leaving the sun of Cape Town for the distant States. A snowstorm and bitterly cold temperatures greeted the fresh-faced immigrant, who was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and open-toe shoes as she stepped off the plane. Her luck - and winter fashion sense - hasn't improved much since.

This continental confusion goes both ways. During our last trip to Cape Town, I scoffed when Louise said the African sun was different. Different? It's the same giant mass of hydrogen and helium, same Earth, same body, what's the difference?

"You'll see."

A few days later, as I struggled to breathe and suffered hallucinations, I finally did understand. It wasn't as hot as a few summer days I spent in Vegas, but the African sun - which sounds like a mythical creature - really did seem different. It sapped me more than the, what, American sun? And in a month, when we're again in Cape Town in the middle of their summer, I'll be the one asking, "What does 32 degrees Celsius mean?"

But in this land my experience guides us. Mostly it's the cold temperatures that torment her. In Minnesota - where the phrase Minnesota winter is as ominous as the words African sun - she's a defenseless creature. Any exposed South African skin is ripe for frostbite. I didn't really totally believe that until last year, when she somehow got frostbite in the shape of a tiny circle on her finger, from a nearly undetectable hole in one of her gloves, despite the fact we were only outside for about 90 seconds. She held it up inches from my face as the final piece of evidence, showing it to me with the zeal of a prosecutor detailing the DNA evidence against a murderer.

"See. My skin can't handle winter."

But she sort of likes snow, thinks it's pretty and adds something to the drab winter. Still, she claims - and I believe her because I've never seen it in the nearly eight years I've known her - that she's never touched snow with her bare hands. On the surface it seems like a ludicrous argument, sort of like Pat Robertson famously claiming he could leg press 2,000 pounds. But I believe her.

She maintains her curiosity about the foreign white substance. She likes sledding. She likes the idea of skiing.

And, a few years ago, she wanted to know what it felt like to be hit by a snowball. Later she said she had images of sappy movies in her head as she pictured a young lady playfully traipsing through the snow as her husband softly threw a clump of snow at her that burst into a thousand snowflakes, each as beautiful as they are unique. Reality wasn't quite so romantic. Or painless. One day, as we walked across the bridge to the Bronx, I told her to run up ahead of me and I'd hit her with a snowball. She eagerly sprinted as fast as her short legs could take her. I, meanwhile, constructed a snowball. It had to be one she'd remember. I grabbed a bunch of wet snow. Packed it together, rolling it around in my hands a bit to get a better feel of it. Then fired.

I knew I'd made the snowball too hard and thrown it with too much velocity when she went down to one knee, crying out in pain as onlookers stared. I knew I'd done some damage when a large welt formed on her lower back. Um, sorry, honey?

In my defense, it's not like I Nolan Ryaned the snowball at her fragile kidneys. I've never had the strongest arm, though as I proved with my perfectly placed killshot, I did always pride myself on my accuracy. As she rubbed her wound, she wondered, while glaring at me with the eyes of someone who just lost their innocence, "What did you do?"

Looking back it was a bit more solid than it should have been, but I had to explain to her the physics of snow and the weapons we make out of it. Nice, puffy snow does not work. Mine did splatter slightly at the point of impact, but not quite enough. As I said, it was too much like an iceball instead of a snowball. But still, they do sometimes sting, physically and emotionally. They're nonlethal grenades designed to help us get through the drudgery of winter and a snowstorm.

She needed to experience what it was like to be hit by one. It was, inevitably, the last time she's been hit by one. The mark disappeared. No scars formed, at least not visible. But it did give her one more reason to hate winter.

And to fear it.

This will be great weather for some outdoor baseball

Twin Citians could see the first snowflakes of the season as soon as Friday. That guarded prediction was issued by the National Weather Service today, based on the fact that the coldest air of the autumn will move into the region this weekend. Low temperatures will plunge into the 20s, with highs "struggling into the 40s," according to the weather service.

Cue up those Minnesota stereotypes, snow's coming. Ya, ya, it's a cold one, ya know. Uff da.

There are many times when I miss Minnesota. The pace, the people, friends, family, driving, small towns, saying pop instead of soda, not having to explain what hot dishes are. Then there are times like this, when just reading the forecast for Minneapolis - which is the only city many people east of Milwaukee and west of Fargo know in Minnesota so it's really the only city that matters to the rest of America - leaves my body shivering and my head shaking.

Often I insist to skeptical people that "winters there aren't that bad. It's basically just like New York." They rarely believe me, even when I tell them stories of unbearable humidity, heat waves, perfect springs, and summers spent on the lake under a bright sun. To them Minnesota is just another name used for Antarctica, in the same way Bombay is now Mumbai but it's still the same city.

Certainly the weather is the primary stereotype people unfamiliar with Minnesota hold about the land of 10,000 lakes and 100 blizzards, followed closely by the idea that everyone there speaks like Sarah Palin or a Coen brothers creation (those are two different things).

"Just how cold does it get?" they might ask, with the earnestness and curiosity of strangers asking Neil Armstrong what life was like on the moon. If I say something like, "Oh, sometimes like 20, 30 below," they'll cringe, and that's before I add the punchline, "and that's not even including the wind chill factor." Like all Minnesotans, I complain about the state's weather - even halfway across the country - while simultaneously taking some strange satisfaction in it, as if our ability to survive and sometimes even thrive in such conditions somehow speaks volumes about our strength and integrity. That's when I'll switch, and go from downplaying the terribleness of the weather to playing it up, in order to make my 28-year stretch there look as impressive as Edmund Hillary's trek up Mount Everest.

It's times like those when Minnesotans make it sound like the rest of the world has fallen for the lie that people can't control the weather. We do control it. And we like it cold and windy and snowy and miserable, and, hey, watch our breath freeze in midair as we talk and we love when our tears freeze to our cold faces too. We could make it warmer but we don't want to. And we like it because it proves how much tougher we are than West Coasters and Southerners and even, yes, New Yorkers and their average January highs of 39 degrees. Compare that to Minneapolis's average January high of 22 degrees.

No wonder people around me have misconceptions about the state, when I can't even keep straight whether the state's weather is just like here or a test of a person's mental strength and physical endurance.

So it is a bit colder, but not terribly so. It's not a barren land, unfit for human life. And being that I don't ice fish, snowmobile or ski cross country or downhill, I don't miss winters at all, even if scraping my car's windows in subzero temperatures did somehow make me feel like more of a man.

To be fair, New Yorkers don't have a copyright on believing in regional stereotypes. If big city folk on the East Coast believe housing options in Minnesota include igloos, many people back home picture New York as either a den of sin or a place that's slightly less dangerous than Baghdad. Actually, New York has the lowest crime rate of the 25 largest cities in the country.

A few years ago we were back home and went to a concert in downtown Minneapolis. We emerged shortly after 10 p.m. and the streets looked like Janesville's after midnight. Only a handful of people milled about and there weren't many lights. It felt more ominous there than it has ever felt in New York. Most of the time in New York, no matter if you're uptown, midtown or downtown, you'll be surrounded by people, and there's safety in numbers.

We were, of course, fine in Minneapolis and the only ominous things there that night existed in our minds. New York's safe, too, my Midwestern brethren. Maybe even safer. And certainly warmer. But Minnesotans might be tougher. Let that comfort you this weekend, as the temperatures plummet and the snow falls.