Courtesy of the Commons.
The best way to avoid cold weather is to be careful who* you marry. My husband and I met and married overseas, and the fact that he was from Wisconsin didn’t seem important at the time. I visited the state once before we wed, but it was summer, the season that makes you believe anything is possible. I won’t say I was deceived, but I will hint at it. When we lived overseas, I told my husband repeatedly that I would never, never live in Wisconsin because it was too cold in the winter.
And I meant it. It is too cold in the winter. Although Wisconsin boasts that it has four seasons, it really has two: winter and springsummerfall. They both last about six months. And while it’s true that the last one, the non-winter season, can almost make you believe Wisconsin is God’s country; in winter, it turns into God’s icebox.
It’s common knowledge that everything is bigger in Texas, my home state, but I’m here to tell you the uncommon truth: it aint so. The winters in Wisconsin are way bigger than the winters in Texas. Winter there is a little bitty bunny that burrows in your yard for the season and plans to eat the bark around the saplings in your yard. Winter in Wisconsin is a great big old polar bear that lives on your front porch and plans to eat you.
You can’t tame a polar bear. They fear you about as much as you fear a rib eye steak or Texas brisket. So what can you do? Here are two tips to help you stay alive in winter if you accidentally marry someone from Wisconsin:
- Avoid going outside.
- If you must go out, don’t.
*Yes, it should be whom. No, I do not plan to change it. Maybe the war is over.
year-struck 
My Pennsylvania-born nephew married a woman from Wisconsin many years ago. A few years afterward he made a comment to a friend “not marry someone from out of state because it gets too hard.” After 7 blissful years in his hometown they moved to her state. That was 9 years ago. The problem is that he will never get her out of there again.
People here suffer from seasonal amnesia. Late spring, summer, and early fall make you forget about winter, until it’s too late….
The only thing worse than a Wisconsin winter is a Minnesota winter. I always wonder about people who move here. I was just stupid enough to stay here after be born here.
I never thought I would say things like, “Wow! It’s going to be a lot warmer next week; it’s supposed to get up to 35.” That’s what living here will do to you.
My husband has relatives in Minnesota.
He says that when I talk about the Syracuse, NY, winters
I endured in my youth, I talk of nothing, of piffle, of
minor league crap. Minnesota is the real goods, the Show,
the Olympics of winter. I bet Wisconsin is too. They seem to
be located pretty close to each other.
Of course, the wind off of Lake Michigan in Chicago in winter
needs to be mentioned, but as a runner up. Losing one’s
breath is not the same thing as losing one’s fingers, toes,
and one’s mind. Bring on the fleece sheets!
I still haven’t bought any of those fleece sheets, but I did find fleece long johns! They are very nice. I’m sure people from Minnesota believe they have the worst winters. To me any winter that the weather dips below freezing is the worst winter.
I wish I could send you warm Texas greetings to toast your frozen toes, but I’m wearing long jobs, socks, and fluffy house shoes in my Austin home, and I’m still cold. Next summer, when it’s 104 here, try to send me some cool sympathy.
We’ve been having weather that’s been minus 30 and 40 with the wind chill, so the weekend forecast of 39 on Sunday sounds downright balmy. It’s probably the same in summer when 90 feels really nice after 104. 🙂
My husband wants to retire to Maine. I plan to work forever.
That’s the beauty of Skype. You can retire to Maine, and you can keep in touch. 🙂
Get out your sled and go have some of that fun you missed as a child.
I think I will just live with the missed fun.
Well, I guess the old saying, “never say never” is actually true. I had a very best friend that I worked with who was from Wisconsin, and she HATED being in Texas so much that she finally hightailed it out of here and went “back home where the weather makes you glad to be alive”. Her biggest complaint, albeit a good one, was the 100 degree months of July, August, and September, and those other four or five months where the heat sucks the life out of you. But other than that, Texas is the best. Really. 🙂
I can’t even imagine living in Wisconsin. Okay, I can imagine it, but why would I want to? No thank you. I lived in Ohio and Virginia as a youngster, and that was enough winter for me. I guess I’ll just have to make peace with the Texas heat.
In the meantime, hope you stay warm. Inside. 🙂
While all of the K-12 schools closed this week, ours didn’t. We are apparently made of tougher stuff and it’s just staff and instructors, no students yet. I am grateful for a down coat that is very, very warm. And of course, long johns; I couldn’t live without them.
I know just how you feel. It was 70 degrees here today, but with wind-chill, it felt like 68.
Well said!
Thanks for your sympathy and understanding. 🙂
I moved the other way, from New York to Texas, and I’ll gladly take a triple-digit summer here over temperatures with minus signs in front of them up north. (Of course if you put two minus signs if front of a temperature, that double negative makes a positive. You ought to try out a double minus sign in the Wisconsin winter and see if it helps.)
I’ve always admired your understated humor. While my Texas nature photography blog doesn’t normally lend itself to humor, once a year I’ve been posting a compilation of strange search engine terms that have led people, often in spite of their wishes, to me. You’re welcome to peruse that annual tribute to fun:
http://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/a-new-round-of-frolicking-with-search-criteria/
I’m with you – I’d take heat over cold any day.
Thanks for the link, You have quite a list! I especially loved all the misspellings.
I was about to say; just grin and “bear” it, but, I know that there is no grinning in the great north country during winter, because if you do, your face might crack.. Best wishes from New England.
I’m sure it’s just as cold or colder in parts of New England, so beware of the bear.
Q. What do you call a bear with dual personalities?
A. A Bi-polar bear! badaboom..
🙂
Love the tips! *smiling*
Glad you enjoyed them.
I feel your pain. The couple of years when my family lived near Chicago resonate in my memory as being mostly winter, with a few thunderstorms and autumn leaf piles and beastly sleep-on-the-basement-concrete humid summer nights squeezed into the cracks between the snow drifts that were to my grade-school eyes sky-high and the gusty wind so sharp and strong we had to hold on to our little sisters by both hands when walking to avoid their accidental hang-gliding.
But then, I say this as I’m sitting at my desk in Texas with two heavy sweater jackets on because it’s dropped to 70 degrees indoors. I guess it’s all relative!!
The curious thing about the temperature is that 40 degrees in October feels almost freezing, but in March it feels almost warm.
believe me, ms. year-stricken, i want to bearhug the bears on the pics. they’re not as scary as you paint them to be. btw, how is the second season treating you, eh? 😉
Winter seems to be enjoying its visit. I don’t think it’s planning to leave any time soon. Sigh ….
ahaha, do another post about the bare bones of winter, ms. yearstricken. i always love it when Westerners write about the grays and blues of winter (i know it’s dreary and not as poetic as the posts, hehe). btw, it’s already summer here, our side of town. or, the globe…
kind regards to you and hubby… 🙂
I feel your pain. The UP of Michigan is pretty brutal, too. During my son’s first year at Michigan Tech in Houghton, MI, they had over 25 feet of snow that winter. He thought it was great and actually thought of moving up there permanently after graduation.
Twenty-five feet of snow sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, something I thought as Americans we were against. It’s in the Constitution, right?
To quote N above, I believe in ‘never say never’, and am still hoping to read more of your ready wit. Often think about you, and miss you.