"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions:

Coldest freakin week I ever spent was in and around Rochester in
February... brrrr....


The humidity is just awful, even at -30F blowing in off those giant
lakes.

The Earth is getting warmer, though. When I was a teen, in the 1960's,
they used to take one of the town dump trucks out on the ice so thick on
Owasco Lake the heavy dump truck was in no danger of cracking the ice.
They'd plow off the top of the ice with the truck making snow piles to
sit on from the snow removed from the "track", a large oval ice
racetrack the snow piles overlooked. The boys from several towns would
put tire chains on their dirt track racecars and race on the lake on
Saturdays, working off some frustrations and for braggin' rights on
ice....to the delight of hundreds of freezing onlookers.

At the races, beer was kept FROM freezing by leaving it in empty
coolers, which delayed its freezing until most of it could be consumed.
At some point, you'd see people putting beer cans under their coats to
thaw the beer out so they could drink it....(c;] People kept warm with
Coleman gas lanterns, Jon-E naptha hand warmers in their hunting coat
pockets and some had battery operated electric socks to thaw frozen
toes. I got some for Christmas when I was 14 because I had frostbitten
toes from hunting with my grandfather. They still pain me, even at 63
if they get cold....a reminder of times past.

Grandfather was a Holstein dairy farmer, about 390 head milked 3 times a
day. You can tell their his cows because you can't see over them unless
you're 7' tall! "Deer Hunting" meant moving the barnyard salt lick from
behind the barn down to under the big maple tree by the back porch so
the deer would be shot right under the branch you wanted to haul the
carcass up for butchering. No sense all this trapsing about in the
woods and dragging a heavy deer around, bleeding all over your truck.
Just sit behind the trellis and let Grandma point out the one she wanted
to cook...first. BANG!...hardly lifting a finger and never getting out
of your rocking chair....(c;

I've seen over 30 deer around that salt lick to choose from.....
Dairy cows all had C-O-W painted on both sides of them in wide white
letters during deer season to keep the CITY hunters from making an
expensive mistake. Gramp STILL sold a few to some really STUPID people
at 4-5 times what they were worth.....and usually ended up putting all
that STEAK in HIS freezer when they paid for them and just left them
there!