Global warming, where are you?
That phrase has been running through my head the past few days — with the temperature at sub freezing marks. I dislike winter and would be content to go from fall to spring. There is a need for the winter season, I know, but I think back to how people have kept warm through the years.
While reading the Cardington history, I found that in the winter of 1824-25, there was a large snowfall followed by a long freeze resulting in the formation of a heavy crust through which animals could not dig for food. The turkey and deer became easy prey for wolves that thrived in large numbers in this area.
This meant that not only was there little game left for man, it also meant the settlers were constantly bothered by wolves. Many hunters found it possible to pay their taxes from the bounties received from wolves’ heads.
We surely don’t have those concerns, but I think of people in my mother’s youthful years when the four-room home she lived in with her parents and brother was heated by one wood burning fire place. When they went to town, which was not often, bricks were heated and wrapped in heavy cloth to keep their feet warm as they rode in the horse drawn sleigh.
Growing up, I recall riding with my parents and three sisters in a 1934 Chevy with no heater but we wore our snow suits, leggings, coat, hat, gloves and sat close together. There was a little fan on the dash to keep the water from freezing on the windshield. Those rubber boots we wore only kept the moisture out and kept the cold in — deep.
Our home was heated by two wood burning stoves, no heat in our bedrooms ice on the windows; and we waited until our father started those fires in the stoves every morning. No bathroom, so need I say more about the outside alternative?
While riding on the school bus in my day, the closer you could sit to the front – you might feel some of the heat from the heater and then arriving at school I would stand over the register in the hall to soak up some more heat.
This leads me to today, where all it takes is a flip of the thermostat for heat, turning on the switch in our cars for warmth and clothing that insulates and wraps the body in comfortable warmth. There’s a lot to be said about the “good old days,” but not about the winter season. I admire and respect our ancestors for how they survived but their actions brought us to today and I wonder how they would react to these “modern conveniences?”
Just 77 days until spring, but that sounds much more bearable than it did many years ago. Meanwhile, I could handle a bit of Global Warming right here in Morrow County.
80 years ago, January, 1938, The Union Register: Elected as directors and officers of the Citizens Bank, Cardington, were Harry Curl, Frank Hartsock, Ivan Koon, Virgil Peck, E. M. Willits and G. H. Ruhlman. Peck was elected president and Willits, cashier Sworn in on the Cardington Board of Public Affairs were J.C. Taylor and L.S. Russell.
70 years ago, January, 1948: Victor Eichorn, Cardington, accepted a position with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in West Virginia as a land appraiser.
50 years ago, January, 1968: from The Searchlight School newspaper: The Cardiington FFA parliamentary team won the gold award: Members were Harold Coder, Leslie Armstrong, Howard Radel, Jim Carroll, Terry Pearl, Don Webb, Jim Dutt, Gale Koehler and Roger McAvoy.
