Little Winters

When Ponce de Leon became the first European to set foot on the land now known at St. Augustine, it had to have been winter time or else no one would have ever settled in Florida. Either that, or the place they were settling from had to have been absolutely horrible. The legend says they were searching for the fountain of youth, but I’m pretty sure they were just desperate for some cold water, otherwise they knew they wouldn’t live to see their hair turn gray.

Summertime in Florida — unless you are vacationing on the coast in an air conditioned condo — is not exactly a hospitable environment. If you are a college football fan you know that the University of Florida refers to their home field as “The Swamp.” Trust me, it’s not one of those ironic nicknames like calling your three hundred pound cousin “Tiny.” Summertime in Florida means blazing heat, humidity so high you can drink the air, alligators, mosquitos, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and out of nowhere thunderstorms that have you dodging lightning strikes like you are in a game of whack-a-mole….and you are the mole. Florida is basically America’s Australia — everything there is trying to kill you, including the drivers. Especially the drivers.

I used to joke with my family in Tennessee and tell them that Florida weather was pretty simple. From March to October it was “Unbearable Summer” and from November to February it was “Not Quite As Hot Summer.” Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration — Florida winters are actually quite wonderful — but as with most exaggerations, there was a kernel of truth to it.

As if to remind me that when you point one finger of judgment at someone else, you have three pointing back at you, I am writing this on the 8th of May, the 50th day of Spring, and the weatherman is giving a frost warning!?!? Returning to the Tennessee Valley just as Winter was coming to an end has reminded me that our neck of the woods has its own bipolar weather tendencies.

I arrived in North Alabama one week before the first day of Spring, which is the best time of year around these parts — in my opinion. Winters in Florida were actually pretty spectacular, whereas our Winters….well, let’s just all agree we are glad they only last a few months. We aren’t far enough South for them to be warm and verdant, and we aren’t far enough North for them to be blanketed with snow. Around here Winter is mostly just cold, damp, barren, and gray. We overlook it for a while because we are excited about Christmas and the New Year, but sometime around mid January the seemingly constantly overcast skies get to be a little much. With the first break in the weather in March, things begin to turn green, the sunshine returns from its Winter vacation in the Sunshine state, buttercups, iris, and fruit trees begin to blossom and…. we all get tricked into thinking Summer has arrived.

We break out the shorts, fill up the pool, dust of the grill and generally mentally shift gears into warm weather mode. We should know better. We do know better, but we just can’t help ourselves. You really can’t blame us. Three months of cloud cover and stick brown trees leaves us longing for a change in scenery, and Mother Nature doesn’t help. All around us the grass starts greening and growing, the birds start chirping, the days get longer, and and everything seems to have a flower on it. We are so ready to get out of the house and soak up some Vitamin D that we throw caution to the wind, pack up the Winter clothes, and celebrate the arrival of Spring.

The transition from Winter to Summer jumps up and down like an EKG — or more recently like the stock market — instead of climbing steadily and smoothly. Temperature generally trends toward warmer weather from week to week, but it also experiences the occasional three or four day cold snap in between, colloquially referred to as Dogwood, blackberry, locust, and my personal favorite, cotton britches winter. Right on the heels of the arrival of Spring, and just after you experience your first sunburn of the new year, comes the first of our “little winters.” 

Our ancient ancestors lacked the science and technology we have today, but they weren’t one whit behind us when it came to good sense. Like Bob Dylan sang, “you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows” and they didn’t need a calendar to know when to expect potentially crop killing cold weather. Even if the temperature spiked for a few days, they knew it wasn’t safe to plant until after the Dogwoods bloomed. They knew that it took a few days of cold weather for the blackberries to begin to grow, and they knew not to put away their cotton britches (longhandles) for a couple of more weeks, usually near the end of May.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our technology and scientific advancements that we get a little too big for our britches, cotton or short, and forget that our ancestors knew a thing or two about life and survival too. If they didn’t, none of us would be here. I am grateful for all of the new and improved advancements we have made that generally make like easier, safer, and more stable, but I also know you don’t need to “forget where you came from.” Those old timers know a thing or two about life and we’d do well to listen.

the Bible gives the same advise. In the long ago, the wise man Solomon cautioned, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28) and a few hundred years later the prophet Jeremiah advised his generation, “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16). Our world changes like the weather, some of it is good, but a lot of it isn’t. We may have learned a lot in the last hundred years or so, but the state of our society suggests we may still have a lot to learn. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go slip on a pair of cotton britches.