How Quickly We Forget

It never ceases to amaze me how easily people forget and how quickly they grow soft. From one season to the next they forget how to drive on snowy and icy roads so there is a rash of accidents the first time snow falls in late autumn. It has been cold this week in Northeast Ohio, but not extremely cold. The high temperature has been in the single digits, but it's winter so you expect that and go on about your business. At least that's the way it used to be, but no more. Now people moan and groan and they even shut down the schools.
It's all because of global warming. Where we once had cold spells like that every winter, this particular one was the first since the year 2000. Granted that's a long time, but you wouldn't think people had forgotten what winter is all about.
Some people, those who believe they know more than 90 per cent of the scientists, contend there is no such thing as global warming. They point to cold spells such as this one in the belief it proves their point. They forget there is still snow and extreme cold in the arctic even though it is getting warmer up there, snow and ice is melting and the polar bears are in danger. So when the jet stream dips far enough south it provides a clear path for that cold air to sweep down from the north.
But maybe we don't really have it so bad. For ten months after the end of World War II in Europe I spent a great deal of time with former German soldiers who had fought in various places including the Russian Front. Just thinking about it made them turn pale. They told stories about various events and often mentioned how they sometimes would spit or urinate and have it freeze with a cracking sound before it reached the ground. How any of them survived is beyond me. Some said they didn't even want to, it was that miserable.
I recently read a story about horses on the Russian Front, where both armies used a great many of them to haul wagons and artillery guns. It said that German horses were capable of withstanding cold up to 24 degrees below zero, Russian horses up to 60 below. The Germans lost a lot more horses.
Those German soldiers said Americans who thought it was cold during the Battle of the Bulge had no idea what it was like to be really cold. I was more than content to take their word for it. I like cold weather, but there's cold weather as we know it, then there's cold weather as the Russians know it. While I enjoy our kind, I never want to experience the Russian variety.

www.dickstodghill.com