The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

Why am I cold all the time? Doesn’t the weatherman know it’s supposed to be spring? 

But I’ve seen much colder days.

I endured 46 below when working for Potlatch Forest shortly after I got out of high school.

Work area layout was a cement slab with a tin roof and the sides all open.

Three planer machines filled the interior of the huge shed.

One person fed the boards into the machine, and two graders marked the planed boards according to their value. Two more pulled the boards off the chains and put them in appropriate piles.

The winter had been cold, and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to freeze yourself every day.

The temperature continued to drop until it hit a low of 46 below.

The superintendent of the planing operation had an office (heated) with windows all around so he could see everything that was going on.

I was the reliever who went around and gave six workers their mid-morning 10-minute break.

Several of the guys would stay longer in the lunchroom than the allotted 10 minutes, which would cause me to run late on the breaks.

They argued that they were so cold that they couldn’t get warm in 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the superintendent was watching all this and must have had his watch set.

He came down on the floor and got a bunch of us together and said that if we couldn’t wear enough clothes to stay warm then we should stay home.

I was wearing canvas pants with long underwear, two wool shirts and a coat over that, leather gloves with a wool liner, and a stocking hat and could hardly move.

He was not popular, but he kept warm.

I had a similar experience with heat.

One of my wife’s favorite places was Death Valley.   

We had visited the valley several times, hoping to be there when the desert flowers were blooming.

We did make it the right time once.

On this one trip, we hit the valley when it was 120 degrees, not unusual for Death Valley.

We enjoyed exploring the colorful canyons that emptied into the valley. You could walk up the canyons a couple hundred yards. The colors could overwhelm you.

This time, we decided to give it a go despite the heat.

Well, we just barely got into the canyon when we realized we were in over our heads.

So it was back to the car and on to our motel where we could cool off.

It was a lesson on taking chances.

So when we are hit with a cold spell, or the heat of summer, remember that it could be a whole lot worse. We have it pretty good here, principally a mild, comfortable climate.