Why I hate Winter

I hated it as a child, I hated it as a teenager, I hated it as a teacher, I hated it as a parent, and now as a senior I hate Winter more than ever! The fact that I have always lived in the same city, in Southern Ontario, Canada, is probably a huge contributing factor to my negative attitude.

When I was young, my long-suffering mother would dress me up in leggings, boots, snow jacket, hat, hood and mittens so I could go out and play in the snow. Ten minutes later, she'd reverse the process because my mitts were wet, my hands were freezing, my socks were soggy and my boots were stuffed with the cold white stuff. Besides, there was nothing to do out there.

Undaunted, she signed me up for skating lessons at the "Winter Club", at the local arena.. I soon discovered that ice skating was not among my limited list of talents. Now I had skinned knees, bruises and a sore posterior to add to the long list of winter miseries.

The teen years were no improvement, only now I had to dress myself. Trudging off to high school through a raging blizzard, like Nanook of the North, loaded down with books was not my idea of fun. Indulging in any outdoor winter sports would have seemed like an undeserved punishment.

It's no wonder I did well at school. Sitting in a warm house doing Homework seemed the best of all available choices during the Winter months.

Eventually I became a teacher, spending most of my career in the early grades. Then, guess what? It was payback time. I had twenty-odd little souls to manoeuvre in and out of winter clothing eight times a day from November through March. Sometimes parents would come early to pick up their child and they'd help with some of the others. I could have kissed them, but I was afraid I'd scare them away and they wouldn't come back and help again.

To add to the fun, the children were bussed to the arena for weekly skating sessions during January and February. These took the place of the usual Physical Education lessons. Every young Canadian would naturally love the activity, and have a natural proclivity for moving gracefully around the ice-covered surface on skates, right? Wrong!

The teachers were expected to be on the ice with the children, in case there was an accident. Most of them were, gliding along on their skates giving pointers to the odd child who was having problems.

Then there was me. I didn't dare risk trying to skate; I'd learned my lesson in that area years ago. I shuffled along in my winter boots, which covered two pair of socks on my cold, numb feet and I prayed for this torturous period in Purgatory to pass quickly.

My first marriage lasted ten years before my husband left for greener pastures leaving me with four children under eleven to raise. The three boys should have been encouraged to join hockey teams, like their friends. But, besides the prohibitive financial considerations, the practices took place at five A.M. and I just couldn't face dragging us all out in the cold at that unholy hour, standing around in a frozen arena for two hours and then teaching all day. Selfish, you think? Lazy? Maybe, but I just couldn't handle it at the time.

To be honest, there were a lot of winter sports and activities they missed out because of my hatred of the coldest season.

Now, I'm a senior, retired and happily married for thirty-five to my second husband, but there's one thing that hasn't changed. I still hate winter. As I write, I'm wearing two pair of woolly socks under my shoes, a fluffy jacket, and heavy jeans. The house is 72 degrees F.

You may be asking, if I won the lottery, would I move to a warmer climate? No, not at this stage of my life. My children, my grandchildren and my family are all near me here. Being retired, I don't usually have to go outside on the worst days, and I've become quite good at cocooning. You might say that Old Man Winter and I have reached a state of respectful coexistence.

Besides I may have the last laugh yet. On days when I go to the window to see the snow blowing around and hear the wind howling, I whisper a message to him under my breath and smile an evil smile: " Have fun while you can - GLOBAL WARMING is proceeding ahead of schedule"!