Attribution: Photo by iuliu illes on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, shivers with the keeper and Phyllis and everyone else as the winter of 2026 uses the irritating “wind chill factor” to report flexing its cold muscle.
Prior to the 1960’s when the “wind chill factor” became the mainstay of winter weather reporting, cold weather talk had character, dealing as it did with comparisons to monkeys’ genitalia and witch’s mammary gear and with these cliché comparisons most often dressed up with creative profanity.
A weather talk session on a frigid morning prior to 1960 produced imaginative imagery that tended to remain at least through the first cup of coffee.
Now somebody will report the wind chill factor and the morning’s cold weather talk will bog down and may even switch to the price of gas or some other stimulating subject.
The keeper yearns for the days when the morning cold weather talk had the potential to leave a country boy wondering how it could be so cold that chickens laid frozen eggs and cows produced ice-cream.
Maybe he’ll ask Phyllis. She’s from Canada and knows about cold weather.
