Winter People...

[NE450No2]

Not to Hi jack the "Iggy getting new neighbors" thread, here is a question for discusion.

I use the Term "Winter People" and Submarine Mentality" in the same light.

Those of you that live UP North, and in Alaska can relate to this.

For several weeks to months out of the year, you face bad weather, cold, darkness, and must be prepared for extended times with no outside contact, support or help.

Same goes for guys on a Submarine...

And then when the weather gets better, or you sail into port, you meet up with other people, and life takes up where it left off, before the "snow" or the ship sailed.

Any person that has a job where he or she is gone from their "normal" life, for extended periods, falls into this catagory.

People that are good and adapted to this life style, can be gone for several months, or even a few years, but when they are back home, they take right up from day one as if they were only gone a few days.

Some people cannot do this, and cannot understand it.

I have been involved in this type of situation over the years, I have "Submarine Mentality", and some of my friends and family do not, and just cannot under stand it.

 

[LVSteve]

i am a bit this way. I can pick up where I left off and it not only baffles people, it drives some of my family up the wall.

 

[Rule3]

We call them Snow Birds, after Easter they are now making their great migration back North to Ohio, Michigan, New York, Indiana and several areas in Canada. (not really the same as what you are talking about but just throwing it out there)

 

[ogilvyspecial]

When I was younger my most active time was the Winter, which was my favorite time of year to canoe. No leaves on the trees let you see into the surrounding woods and snow melt run off, from sunny days, kept the water nice & clear, unlike the summer rain that silted up the local rivers.

When I wasn't canoeing I was either bunny huntin' or ice fishin'. Ice fishin' was also my favorite. You didn't need a whole lot of equipment, just a spud early in the year, then a auger later when the ice thickened up, and a plastic 5 gal. bucket for everything else, which doubled as your seat.

I remember one year a friend & I were out on a local, very rural, mill pond fishing during a blizzard. Not blizzard like conditions, but a true blizzard. We weren't far off the road so people could see us through the "horizontal snow" and I couldn't say how many people stopped, honked, then rolled down their window to yell how nuts they thought we were. We were catchin' fish so it was all good as far as we were concerned.

I went thru one phase where I would just go snowshoeing, nothing more, nothing less. Just "walking" the woods through the deep snow to see what was going on out there. Life went on for many animals and there were always birds out doing their thing.

I won't even go into the snowmobiling aspect, something our family started doing back in the 1960's when the machines were nothing like they are now.

Winter, spring, summer or fall, they all offer something different here in Michigan and if you don't take advantage of what's offered you're missing something very special. One very special aspect of winter is it's bug free, my favorite part!

 

[TACC1]

All great pastimes, but later years, I have to drive in
whatever Mother Nature provides. That's taken some of the
fun out of it. Nothing beats walking up on a deer, that hasn't
figured out that you're there. TACC1

 

[NE450No2]

We call them Snow Birds, after Easter they are now making their great migration back North to Ohio, Michigan, New York, Indiana and several areas in Canada. (not really the same as what you are talking about but just throwing it out there)

Actually Rule 3, it is the same thing. Good analagy.

Snow Birds leave the cold of the north to the milder weather of the south.

They come down here and meet up with their snow bird friends, take up right where they left off last year, hang out till the weather gets better where they are from, then go home [back to port so to say] and then take right back up with their Yankee neighbors... [I just had to throw that Yankee thing in there...]

They are a perfect example of the Submarine Mentality... IMHO of course.

 

[ogilvyspecial]

All great pastimes, but later years, I have to drive in
whatever Mother Nature provides. That's taken some of the
fun out of it. Nothing beats walking up on a deer, that hasn't
figured out that you're there. TACC1

I hear ya loud & clear Paul, which is why most of my previous post was in the past tense.

The mind is willing but the body ain't as able as it used to be. Two back surgeries with at least one more in my future has taken some of the get up & go out of me.

I've been meaning to get back out ice fishing but wouldn't ya know it, we had no safe ice conditions this past winter, but that never used to stop me. I always prided myself on being the first on & the last off the lakes every season and only went through the ice twice during all those years. A pretty good track record, all things considered.

Hmmm, I wonder where my thick pieces of wood doweling with the ten penny spikes in them, tied together with 550 cord that went around the back of my neck went. Oh well, I have a long time to find them, which should be easier to do than finding the nerve to rely on them as life savers once again....

 

[feralmerril]

Christmas day of 1960 My folks dropped through the ice in their VW on lake poygan wisconsin. They lived. About a week later we were retrieveing the car and I almost got killed. We winched the car up and on to the ice. I was in the car to steer it, a wrecker was trying to pull it but couldnt get traction as the brakes on the VW had froze up. A old man slammed into the rear end with his buick trying to get me going. That irritateed me and I got out to stop him. It was the last thing I knew for about a hour! Someone said they seen my feet about 8 feet up in the air and I came straight down on the ice with my head. I was wearing one of those thick fur trooper type cap, else it might have killed me.
As it was my folks said I wasnt even breathing. They held prayer over me and rushed me to the hospital. I came around as we arrived. Oddly, I remember wakeing up as mad as I was when I stepped out of the car.
A couple days later I was getting a haircut and the guys in the shop were talking about a feller getting killed on lake poygan pulling a car out!

 

[BaldEagle1313]

NE450No2,

I get the analogy. Really, I do. You can't imagine (well, maybe you can) the number of people who tell me they could never live in Seattle because of the climate. It doesn't really rain here as much as people think; in raw number of inches New York gets more, and Miami gets WAY more.Miami get 2 inches in two hours and the rest of the day is great.
We get ours a tenth or a quarter of an inch at a time, every day or two, all autumn, winter, and spring long. Seattle water torture. You don't need to take anyone to Gitmo for waterboarding, just bring them up here and stand them outside. A few years ago we literally went over 100 days in a row with no sunny days, no mostly sunny days and dang few partially sunny ones. Seattle has a tremendous amount of depression in the winter. They call it S.A.D. - seasonally affected disorder. I think it's folks from California who moved here and can't deal.

But the 3 months of summer? From mid-July to mid-October? Best place to be.

 

[labworm]

I'll take 50 degrees Fahrenheit year round. Although the warm temps are nice, sometimes it is just too hot for me.

New England, spring and fall when it shows up, is unbeatable as far as I am concerned.

 

[Oldiron]

I think most of it has to do with what you grew up with. I grew up sitting on the side of the bed watching the sky ablaze with lightning. Spent 4 years in San Diego in the service and everyone said you will be back because the weather is so nice. Yep, Nice and BORING. Saw lightning twice in 4 years, once over Mt Laguna (40miles away) and one night we were 200 miles out at 2,000 ft and the lightning was over the horizon to the west.
In Alabama we have folks that hold up in the summer because of the heat and humidity but if I spend most of my time in my shop I get used to it will have to slip on a long sleeve shirt at night after I come in and bathe because my wife has the A/C running. Some thoughts from the warmer side.
Larry

 

[NE450No2]

Bald Eagle.

Wile I have never lived in constant "drizzle" and light rain, I have hunted a lot on Alaska and in Montana, where we did have a lot of that kind of weather.
You just need the right kind of clothes and rain gear.

Just yesterday I went to the range and it was raining off and on.

I had a project I needed to get done so I just enjoyed the cool weather that came with the rain.

 

[Muley Gil]

I spent five years working overseas; two in Kosovo and three in Afghanistan. I feel that I adapted pretty well to my short leaves at home.

I talked to a few folks who tried to drive, back here in the States, like they did over there-avoiding possible IEDs and people that tailgated (tailgaters in places like Iraq and the 'Stan tried to be suicide bombers).

 

[BaldEagle1313]

Bald Eagle.

Wile I have never lived in constant "drizzle" and light rain, I have hunted a lot on Alaska and in Montana, where we did have a lot of that kind of weather.
You just need the right kind of clothes and rain gear.

Just yesterday I went to the range and it was raining off and on.

I had a project I needed to get done so I just enjoyed the cool weather that came with the rain.

There's a saying around here. Weather only affects your apparel, not your plans.

To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy...

If you cancel your outdoor plans because of rain, you just might be a Californian.