Tag: personal

I’m Old and I Can’t Stand Cold Weather Anymore

As you get older you find you can no longer do things you could when you were younger. When I was in high school I could eat an entire pack of cheap hot dogs, buns and all, in one go. I could even scarf down a box of mac and cheese with those hot dogs. These days I barely get three hot dogs in before feeling over stuffed. This isn’t a bad thing though, I don’t need to be eating whole packs of hot dogs in one sitting. Reflecting on my childhood winters I’m amazed how much of a beating I could take from the cold and snow. Now when I go out in the winter, I chill much easier. Just like I can’t eat whole packs of hot dogs anymore, I can’t play in the Winter cold like I used to.

I grew up in a place called Sergeant Bluff. It’s a small city in the north-west corner of Iowa. It’s right next to Sioux City, which is where I usually tell people I’m from because there’s a higher chance you’ve heard of Sioux City than Sergeant Bluff.

The winters of my youth were consistent with some variation. Some years would have heavier snowfalls than others. But on the whole, Winter was that old reliable friend that visited every year.

Sergeant Bluff is technically a city but it’s weird to call it one. I could probably bike from one end to the other within an hour or less. I was raised by a single mom who needed to leave for work before I needed to leave for school, and apparently I was too close to the school to use the bus system, even though I lived on the other side of town. So I would either bike or walk to school. Obviously I would walk in the winter.

Winter molded me during those walks. We became close companions, Winter and I. I grew to weather Winter’s fierce cold. I rarely walked to school wearing more than jeans, a cheap winter coat, and a pair of gloves. If it was a particularly windy or cold day I might have a hat and face covering. On the coldest of days I would arrive with thighs like icicles that would take time to thaw once I reached my destination.

But my relationship with Winter didn’t end with me freezing my ass off walking to and from school. What childhood is complete in the MidWest without snow ball fights, building snowmen, and building snow forts?

And this is where my true hubris with Winter really shines. Rarely did I ever wear things like snow pants. I played in the snow with nothing more than a trusty pair of jeans. This was mostly down to the randomness of youth. Most of the time my winter fun would come about while walking home from school with friends or if I was hanging out at someone’s house.

If I was walking home with friends there was always the chance of a snowball fight. Especially if the snow was just right. That right combination of fluff and stickiness. These were spontaneous events and often enough I didn’t have the right gloves. About half the time I would just throw snowballs without gloves.

And do you think a no school day would keep me safe from Winter’s embrace? It didn’t. Even when school was canceled I would venture out and walk to hang out with my friends and the mischiefs of youth would follow.

I don’t remember if what followed was from a walk home or if I was already hanging out at my friend’s house. There was plenty of snow already on the ground and some more had started to come down. With nothing but jeans and a standard pair of gloves I went out to play in the snow, we built a little fort and crawled around in it. It was late afternoon and we were out there for about an hour or so. The sun was almost completely set before we stopped. I then walked home. I don’t remember feeling the cold. But when I got home my jeans were soaked in melted snow. I was very comfortable with Winter.

Ah, to frolic in the winter season as I used to. But things change, I grew up. I stopped having the time and space to play in the winter like I used to. I learned to drive, got a car. I was no longer forced to endure the cold. I became unaccustomed to the cold. Now whenever I go out into the cold of Winter I can’t stand it so much. Gone are those days when I could spend time outside and not be bothered by the cold passing through my laughably inadequate outfit for the season. I laugh now in my old age of thirty-one and think about how times have changed. I’ve grown old and can’t stand the cold no more.

But as I think about these changes I also think about how, oddly, Winter has changed too. It’s hard to describe, Winter as we know it is still there. Every year there is some snow, some ice, and some cold. And there are still blizzards. Just a feeling though, a feeling in my bones, that Winter has slowly changed. Winter’s reliable ebb and flow has wobbled a bit.

Winter I’m the mortal here! I’m the one that’s supposed to wither and die in the blink of an eye! Whole generations pass before you! Winter, my old friend, why do you look so tired? I never know when you’re coming or going anymore. And you never stay as long you used to. I know there were epochs on this world when you ruled it all and others when you just slept and let it be. Is this what it’s like before you go to sleep again? We get slow and tired too before we enter our eternal sleep. But you get to wake up again. Will any of our children be there when you wake up? Will anything of this world be around or will it all be new? The land I belong to has always known you. I should not be awake while you sleep.

Winter has changed, is changing, we know it is. Climate change is changing the world around us faster and faster each day. Every year we are seeing new record high temperatures. And global temperatures continue to rise. Winter will be with us for the foreseeable future but it will be become more chaotic. Our failure to tackle climate change is and will continue to sow chaos into every aspect of our world.

As I’ve grown older, environmentalism and tackling the challenges climate change brings has become more and more important to me. It isn’t easy any day. It’s become a balancing act of cynicism and hopelessness against trying to maintain optimism and fighting for the future.

When I remember the Winter of my youth it is coupled with a sense of carefreeness and boundless optimism that can only come from youth. The cold didn’t bother me because I was having too much fun! Every kid should have that. But as the negative effects of climate change creep ever more into our world, the chances for children to experience that lessens.

Famine due to the destruction of food sources, loss of home due to natural disasters, dealing with being a climate refuge, experiencing the violence around you as desperation leads to fighting over resources, experiencing extreme weather conditions. The list could go on and on. But it all leads to the loss of childhood that all should get to experience.

The loss of Winter. Nothing more than a memory moving further and further away. The loss of childhood glee, becoming harder and harder to pass on.

Winter I’m sad to see you go and I don’t like what’s coming over the horizon.

My Life With Food – Growing Up

I love food. Not just stuffing my face with it. Food and food culture are a foundational part of the human experience. Sit two groups of people down, who don’t speak the same language or know anything about the other. Have them trade meals and they would gain just as much as having a conversation. Food is a language in of itself. Over the years I have developed a better understanding of food and food culture and what it means to people and their identity. How they live and their relationship to the rest of the world. From time to time I’ll do an article about my experiences, thoughts, or philosophy of food. Here I’ll start at the beginning of my relationship with food.

I grew up in a family that knew its food. My grandparents on my dad’s side ran a farm. My grandpa raised cows and chickens. Once in a while he would bring my dad those big blocks of cheese. Or pounds of meat from a slaughter. My dad moved into the city and I really only ever ended up on the farm during the holidays. But I always got to experience the fruits of their labor.

My dad’s family always did these traditional mid-western family meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving belonged to my aunt and Christmas belonged to my grandparents. I’m going to focus on Christmas because my emotions involving food are more associated with Christmas than Thanksgiving. The main dish for Thanksgiving and Christmas had always been turkey. But at some point I said we should have fried chicken for Christmas. I don’t remember how old or how serious I was but my grandma obliged. Every Christmas forward we would have fried chicken.

When I got the chance I enjoyed watching my grandma cook. One year she showed me you could keep a pot of boiling water from boiling over with a wooden spoon. It’s a simple piece of knowledge but it’s one that means so much because it’s wrapped in an emotional blanket.

My grandma passed away a few years ago. I still miss her. I wasn’t there the last couple of Christmases she hosted. I had moved further away and retail is a bitch when it comes to taking time off for the holidays. But she carried on making that fried chicken. I’m a bit stoic with my emotions and I don’t know if I ever let her know how much a simple Christmas dinner meant to me. She changed the way we ate simply because her grandson asked her to. She didn’t have to. I don’t know why but that meant a lot to me. Christmas for me the last few years has had a melancholy aftertaste. I think about the days we sat around the table digging into the food she made. Pouring out the candy in our stockings stuck to the wall.

I still haven’t joined my dad’s family for Christmas. Things move forward, things change. I have had the pleasure of joining them for Thanksgiving but the last couple of Christmases I’ve spent with my fiancé’s family. Christmas isn’t the same but it doesn’t need to be. Thanksgiving dinner isn’t even the same. That too has evolved over the years. But there is still great tasting food all around so it’s all good.

As I write this I realize just how much I associate food with my grandparents. When I was young my grandparents owned a bar. Apparently I called it the “free food place”. If my brother and I came in the morning my grandma would be in the kitchen making us breakfast. Sometimes grandpa would let us have a bag chips from the selection hanging over the bar. If we came at night I would always get chicken drummies. Days weren’t always easy. My parents struggled for financial survival and their own personal demons. Things that flew over my head at that age. But there were always these moments food could comfort.

One final note on this set of grandparents and food. I don’t remember when it became a ritual but every time my brother and I visited our dad, my grandparents would come on Sundays with a box of doughnuts. We would sit there chowing down on doughnuts while they drank coffee. We would catch up. My brother and I would be ourselves. These days too disappeared. I stopped visiting my dad during high school. The only times when I would see my grandparents after this would be during holidays or if they decided to visit the local Perkins where I lived.

I generally think of my mom’s side of the family more as sweet makers. My grandma made cakes for a living. She can cook other things too, but cakes or other baked sweets is what I’ve always associated with her. I think the other food thing I associate with my grandma, besides cake, is the family reunions she would take me to. Her extended family would gather every year at a lake. There would be food and summer activities. There was a lake to swim in. One year I got a tick that refused to drink my blood or drop off. The food was your standard mid-western potluck food. Various forms of fruit salads. Noodle or slow cooker dishes.

I don’t remember much about the food my great-grandmother made but there are a couple of food related things that have stuck with me. She lived in a small mid-western town. She canned a lot of her own vegetables. She also had a rhubarb patch. And I love rhubarb. And apples. She also had an apple tree.

Now for the food I grew up with day to day. I don’t remember much about the food my mom would regularly make. I have memories of hamburger helper and tuna noodle casserole. We were lower middle-class and didn’t have the money for anything too expensive. But we had what we needed.

One food ritual I remember fondly is every two weeks we would order Godfathers pizza. These were the weeks my mom got paid and we would treat ourselves. Godfathers has always remained my favorite fast food pizza. I also worked there my senior year of high school. I say it’s because I think it really does taste better than all the others but maybe it’s just an emotional attachment to those moments. Nothing beats chowing down on pizza and watching Red Dwarf and Doctor Who on Iowa Public Television.

Another food ritual we had might explain my preference for Burger King over McDonalds. Every other weekend my mom would take me to spend the weekend with my dad. On the way there we would drive through Burger King. It became a ritual treat in the same way Godfathers was.

Until my senior year in college it was just my mom and I. She tried dating and had a partner or two but they never worked out. It’s not easy being a single mother, especially in your 20s. But she worked hard to make sure I had a roof over my head and food in my belly. She was usually gone in the morning before I left for school and didn’t get home until a couple hours after I did. I learned to fend for myself food wise as early as I could.

And my mom gave me the freedom to experiment with food, even when it resulted in a destroyed kitchen. In one of my earliest attempts at fried chicken I coated the chicken in powdered sugar instead of flour. I thought the flour was a little funny but didn’t think too much about it. My mom got home as I was frying and pointed out my mistake. We finished frying what we had, with uneven results. Some of the pieces we were able to cook all the way through. The skin ended up with a nice BBQ taste but sometimes the meat wouldn’t cook all the way before the skin started getting burnt crispy.

In high school I stopped eating school lunch. I played it off with others as not needing it but it wasn’t something we couldn’t afford at the time. I could have probably gone back on school lunch at some point but I had gotten used to not eating lunch. Instead when I got home from school I would load up on sandwiches. Or other foods I could readily make. Like hot dogs or macaroni and cheese.

My dad would almost always make the food when I went to visit him. He would make fried chicken a lot, much to annoyance of my brother who grew to hate it for a while. My dad would make other staples, like sloppy joes. I do have one negative memory when it comes to my dad and food.

I wanted to make something for the pastor of the church we went to. I decided I wanted to serve tuna noodle casserole. My mom had prepped some stuff so I could just combine things and put it in the oven. But I didn’t get the chance. I was off doing something else and my dad took it upon himself to make the tuna noodle casserole. He didn’t think it was a big deal. I was pissed and upset. I tried holding it in. I’m still annoyed about it to this day.

It’s hard to recount my entire journey with food. I think most people would struggle to. I’ve tried to cover the major beats I had with food while growing up. My ties with food were deeply personal and familial but I didn’t associate food with a cultural aspect. It wouldn’t be until later in life I would understand the cultural dimension food. I recognize the food I grew up with was part of a particular culture. And while I have branched out there is a certain comfort in those foods I grew up with.