You Don't Know Cold……

           Listen, you think it is cold now. You should have survived some of those early 1960’s West Tennessee winters. One year we had ducks from off of Archie Moore’s pond knocking on our back door.  They didn’need anything to eat, they just wanted to know if it would be alright if they huddled around our wood stove.

           I’ve seen horses back up to sheep and pigs. I’ve seen chickens in a pile. We couldn’t get the dogs out from under the house to run a coon. The City Café was giving away free coffee for anyone fool enough to venture out. Water mains burst. There would be a run on long johns and wool socks up at the National Shirt Shop.

           It was one of those cold spells that froze Everett’s Lake over as solid as a concrete silo. We gathered up there just as fast as we could. Free coffee and busted up water lines didn’t concern us……but we couldn’t afford to waste the possibilities of a frozen lake!

           We didn’t know nothing about ice hockey. And curling was as foreign to us as it still ought to be to the Olympic committee. But we could ice skate with the best of them. Of course, we didn’t exactly have skates. We had brogans. And boots. And laced up Wolverines. Once you got to sliding across that lake it didn’t matter.

           We’d race down the hill on the back side of the pond to get a running start and see how far we could slide across that frozen sea. The pushing and elbowing would start before we got to the ice. The tackling broke out when someone was “skating” past you! It was so cold less intelligent birds (the ones that hadn’t high-tailed it south) had stopped singing. John Ingram’s nose would go from red to blue. My teeth would be playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

           We couldn’t go home. There was no telling when that lake might freeze back over!

           Football games never worked on ice. You couldn’t plant your foot to throw. You couldn’t cut back if the hole opened up inside. It would break your tail bone when you got tackled. And the incessant cold kept your feet and hands so numb that running and catching was almost out of the question. I thought for a moment the elements were going to whip us.

           “Do you think this ice could hold up a truck?” We had tired of sliding and tackling.

           “Sure it will.”

           “I don’t know.”

           “I bet you anything it will!”

           “Will not!”

           “Will to!”

           I hate it when we got down to “bet it will”-“bet it won’t”. Somehow we all got in trouble soon afterwards. Ben Everett’s dad had an old three quarter ton pick-up out behind the barn. You can see where this one is headed……

           Nobody took their keys out of their vehicles back in those days. We let Ben drive because except for Don Melton and Bob Edwards, he was the tallest. And maybe Mr. Everett would only kill him if that lake wasn’t as frozen as we thought! The biggest problem was getting it back to the lake. There were trees all along the back side. We were going to have to pull out on the Huntingdon Highway. Scotty McCullar ran to the hill going back toward town and waved when he didn’t see no traffic coming. Ben pulled that old Ford into low and we lurched off. Did I mention that this was the winter of our 13th year? Driver’s Licenses were not so important nor the roads as busy as today. We held our cold breaths as Ben eased by the big house and he needed both lanes to maneuver down the slippery highway toward the lake. There was no real road as you turned off to the lake, just a fence gate and a trail. It didn’t matter, cause Ben scraped one side of the gate post and missed the trail altogether!

           We were on the ice before we had time to figure if we could do it or not! It sure cut down on the arguing. We glided out to the middle and were proud as punch that the ice was holding. The problem arose when Ben tried to turn around and go back. The wheels spun but had no traction. And no matter which way he turned the steering wheel, we couldn’t make any headway.

           We got out and did some serious pondering. It was the first time all day I forgot about my cold hands.

           “We’ve got to get the mules and pull the truck back to the bank.” Folks, this was going from bad to worse. Why didn’t we just learn how to curl!

           Ben’s dad had the crabbiest mules in ten counties! He couldn’t swap’em or give’em away….and he tried every third Monday. It took us an hour to get them harnessed and down to the pond. We looped an end of the rope to the pick-up but couldn’t get those ornery mules to gee, or haw! Ricky finally, out of frustration, whapped the biggest mule across the backside with a broken tree limb. People, that team took off like a shot out of a cannon toward the setting sun! They pulled the bumper clean off the old Ford and the last time we saw that thing it was twisting through the air as if it was trying to catch those crazy mules!

           I’d had all the fun I could stand for one afternoon. A day that had started out with so much promise had kinda turned dark and foreboding. It probably didn’t help that we left the truck in the middle of the frozen lake and God only knew were the mules were.

           And friends, if you think that lake was cold or those heat seeking ducks were cold or those piled up chickens were cold……you should have seen the look on my Daddy’s face when he got off the phone with Mr. Everett.

              Brrrrrrrrr,

                  Kes