{"id":12092,"date":"2014-01-24T18:46:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T23:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=12092"},"modified":"2014-01-25T08:48:29","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T13:48:29","slug":"deep-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=12092","title":{"rendered":"Deep Freeze…"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a><\/p>\n

A little vacation
\nAin’t asking very much.
\nI hate comin’ home to this old broken down apartment,
\nI wish I had a dime for every hole that’s in the carpet…<\/p>\n

All I want is a life,
\nTo drink from a glass from a well that ain’t dry,
\nI’m sick of the crumbs, I want a piece of that pie,
\nAll I want is a life.<\/p>\n

—Tim McGraw, lyrics
\n__________________<\/p>\n

The SUV was sitting off to the side in the parking lot, just as I was leaving work one evening this week. A fancy one, looked like. It was almost dusk, right at five, and I couldn\u2019t see if anyone was even sitting in it. Everyone had already left, except Mahlon, one of my yard guys. He pulled around and opened his window. \u201cDo you want to check it out, what\u2019s up over there?\u201d He asked. Yeah, I better, I said. If you would, just stay back here, don\u2019t leave, until I know what\u2019s going on. So he stayed back while I pulled up to the vehicle. I rolled down my window. The other driver rolled his down, too. He was talking real fast on his phone. <\/p>\n

It was a Range Rover. I don\u2019t know much about them, but I know they\u2019re expensive. And the guy told me. \u201cThe radiator hose broke. I can\u2019t move. I\u2019m talking to the tow truck people, trying to get them over here to haul us home.\u201d He had people in there with him. They looked cold. After waving Mahlon on out, I told the guy, kind of chided him. It’s close to zero out here. Next time you break down in my parking lot and it\u2019s that cold, come inside. No sense sitting out here and freezing. Come on over to my truck and warm up. All four doors opened, then. And five people stepped out. The driver, and what looked like his brother. And three teenagers in the back seat, a guy and two astonishingly beautiful girls. They were all shivering. <\/p>\n

My back seat was a mess, of course. Well, my whole truck is a mess, usually. Because I got no one to nag me to keep it cleaned up. The back seat is especially cluttered. Boxes stacked and strewn about, with all kinds of gear. Flashlights, jumper cables, tow rope, and extra jackets and such. I reached back and tried to pile the stuff off to one side. The three teenagers packed themselves in. It was pretty tight. And the man and his brother sat up front with me. Well, if your tow truck\u2019s on the way, I\u2019ll open the office and just wait with you, I said. \u201cThey said it won\u2019t be until eight, but she said she\u2019d see if they can move us up to the front,\u201d he said. So we sat there, while he made few calls to other people. I had the heat cranked up all the way. And they were still shivering, back there in the back seat. They kept chattering in a foreign language. I had no clue what it was, so I asked them. \u201cGreek,\u201d the teenage boy told me. <\/p>\n

And then the man\u2019s phone rang. It was the tow truck dispatcher lady. She couldn\u2019t get anyone over before eight. They were just too overwhelmed. Tell her to pick you up at Aunt Jennie\u2019s Diner, just down the road, I told him. So he did. She knew of the place and said the tow truck driver would meet them there. And they hung up. <\/p>\n

I was going to try to get to the gym that evening, because it\u2019s been tough lately, to get over there. What with snowstorms and early closings and all. I really had planned to make it. That was pretty much shot, now. Oh, well. I\u2019d go home and shovel the walks from this last big storm we\u2019d had the day before, I figured. And they got their purses and whatever from the Range Rover and piled back in. Six people up front in the cab. And six 80-lb. pole pills in the bed of the truck. My yard guys stack them in there, when the roads get bad, to give me some weight to work with. And off we trundled, my truck and me. It\u2019s the biggest load I\u2019ve ever hauled. I have no idea who these people were, except they lived in Wilmington. We never spoke our names. I dropped them off in front of Aunt Jennie\u2019s and wished them well. Just go tell them what\u2019s going on. They have good food. They\u2019ll be fine with you hanging out here until you get a tow, I told them. The man shook my hand and thanked me. And so I left them. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the kind of winter it\u2019s been. Where a hifalutin\u2019 SUV like a Range Rover sits useless in my yard, because a hose busted because of the cold. The kind of thing that comes at you sometimes, when you\u2019re least expecting it. It\u2019s been a brutal, brutal winter so far. You try to take it as it comes. Maybe I\u2019m just getting old and cranky. But right now, I\u2019m just flat out tired of it all. I\u2019m weary, just weary, of all of it. And the way it\u2019s looking, there\u2019s still a long way to go until spring. And the global warming wackos have come up with a brand new term for it, even, so they can claim the climate\u2019s changing, and it\u2019s all our fault. Polar Vortex. That term makes me weary, too. Why not just call it what it is? It\u2019s a long, hard winter. It\u2019s been this way before. It\u2019ll be this way again. And it\u2019s never any fun. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how anyone can ever romanticize this season. I hear people fuss now and then, about how great it is, all the cold and wind and snow. And how cozy it is by a warm fire inside, all wrapped in a blanket with a book. And I think, blech. Nothing romantic about any of that. Sure, sometimes winter acts tame, by being tame. To get you to look the other way, to catch you off guard. But its true nature always shows itself, if you wait long enough. And its true nature is that of a freakin\u2019 beast. Because winter, real winter, will always break in and break things. Whether it\u2019s this guy\u2019s fancy Range Rover, or my old house. <\/p>\n

I think back, now and then, to what my brother Nathan claimed years ago. \u201cWe were always cold, in winter, growing up,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even know it, but it was always cold. I have never been able to warm up from that cold.\u201d I thought he was just saying wild things, from bad memories. But this winter, I think back and he was right. It was always cold, in Aylmer in winter. The Lake Erie winds swept in, ruthless and biting. And it always snowed and snowed and snowed. The plows rolled through, then, and the snow banks beside the road were higher than our heads, often, in many places. We didn\u2019t think much of it, because that\u2019s just the way it was. <\/p>\n

The house was always warm, at least during the day. At night, after the fires lowered and died, that\u2019s when the cold crept in. And every fall, Mom brought out her big feather blankets and put them on our beds. I\u2019ve never seen any like that since. They were big, and fluffy. Filled with goose feathers. You could nest down in those, didn\u2019t matter how cold the room was around you. And you could sleep in peace. But getting up was the problem. By the time Dad called upstairs that it was time to go do the chores, he had a fire roaring in his big contraption of a wood stove in the northwest corner of the living room. We shivered from our warm snug nests, to even think about stepping out into that cold air. But Dad\u2019s hollering was pretty persistent, and you couldn\u2019t just ignore it. By the second or third time, it was time to get out from under that big old warm comforter. Step onto the cold floor, on our bare feet. Dress, as quickly as possible. And then run down the stairs to the living room and huddle by the stove. It was all so cold, all of it. And then we put on our coats and headed out to the barn. That was a fairly warm place, what with all the animal heat going on. Warm, but odorous. We didn\u2019t even think about the way the place smelled, though. Because we were raised around the barn. Warm was what we wanted, and were looking for. <\/p>\n

We had running water in Aylmer. They\u2019ve always had that, ever since the settlement was founded. And Dad\u2019s water system was pretty simple. He installed a vast water tank in the hayloft of our big old barn. The windmill just south of the house filled the tank. And the water gravity-flowed to the house and the water tanks for livestock. That meant there were pipes going every which way, from the tank. And I can remember almost every winter, Dad slogging around out there with a bucket of hot water and some rags, trying to unthaw things. It always looked real messy to me. <\/p>\n

I kind of felt it coming, early on, that it would be a tough winter. We haven\u2019t had a real bad one in a while. Last year, the ground never even froze up. And you could just calculate what was coming. That, and the Farmer\u2019s Almanac boldly claimed we were in for some big storms. I don\u2019t know how those people do it, but they\u2019re right more often than they\u2019re wrong. <\/p>\n

And the first snow came one Sunday in early December, while we were in church. I kind of noticed it coming down outside. Didn\u2019t look that bad. So most of us stood around and visited for an hour or so, like usual. And by the time I walked out to leave, it was absolutely treacherous out there. I crept out to Rt. 41 in 4-wheel drive, and slowly edged down Gap Hill. PennDot was caught completely off guard. It\u2019s been years since I\u2019ve seen such horrendous driving conditions. Traffic was already at a full stop going uphill. And it was like a minefield, all the way home. I would have been fine, except for the other traffic out there. Cars stuck halfway up hills. Buggies clogging up things; you had to dodge around them. And of course, look out for the nuts coming up from behind and passing you. Forty-five minutes later, I finally got home. And I was very grateful to be there. No going to Vinola\u2019s to watch football this afternoon, I thought to myself. I’m staying right here. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the way it went, pretty much ever since, for over a month now. A hard snow slashes in, and just shuts things down. And messes up all my schedules at work. Deliveries pile up on each other, and the builders try to fit in what they can, when they can. And you get it all shook out and straightened out. Then it all happens again. <\/p>\n

And I thought about it a few times, as it got cold and stayed cold. My furnace downstairs. It\u2019s an old heating system, in this house. But the furnace was relatively new, back when we moved in. The Amish man had bragged about it. \u201cIt\u2019s less than ten years old, so it should last you a good many years, yet,\u201d he said. And we looked at what he was pointing out to us. A little furnace, with a great tangle of all kinds of pipes strung about. The water heating system ran through it. If that furnace ever quit, there would be a world of hurt waiting. I didn\u2019t think much about it. The house was real. And the heating system was real. We could see it. And that day, the old house could have been in way worse shape, all of it, and we would have taken it anyway. <\/p>\n

And I kept the furnace serviced, pretty much every year. Usually in the summer, that\u2019s when you get that stuff done. And I had it all checked out last summer. So hopefully, with any luck, it would get me through one more winter, even a bad one. Plus, I figured, I had a wild card. The tenant. He\u2019s pretty capable, and he has lots of connections. If he can\u2019t fix it, he\u2019ll know someone who can. I felt pretty confident about all that. And as December passed on in to January, everything seemed to be hanging together pretty well, down in the basement. <\/p>\n

And it all came loose about two weeks ago. Late one night, as I was getting ready for bed, I thought I heard a strange gurgling sound coming from the kitchen sink. This cannot possibly be a good thing, I thought. The water still came, though, when I turned on the tap. The pressure seemed good. I checked around all over, for any water coming from anywhere. Walked down to the basement. Nothing that I could see. It was late. Oh, well. Maybe nothing\u2019s wrong. If there is, I\u2019ll figure it out tomorrow. <\/p>\n

The next morning, the water pressure was very low. And the water itself was murky. Gah. It had finally come. Trouble with my system. And right in the middle of the worst winter anyone\u2019s seen in these parts for decades. The tenant was already gone. So I called him. He had showered last night, and the pressure was fine. Well, it\u2019s not fine now, I told him. \u201cI\u2019ll check it out when I get home,\u201d he said. I\u2019ll leave the outside basement door unlocked, and the light on, I said. <\/p>\n

I skipped the gym that evening and went straight home. He was puttering around down by the furnace, talking to a buddy on his cell phone. We could hear water running through the pipes. And when water\u2019s running, it has to be going somewhere. That\u2019s what he couldn\u2019t figure out. The next day was a Saturday. And his buddy agreed to stop by in the morning. <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have a real good feeling about it all. I met them and let them in. And the two of them stood there, trying and trying to figure out where the water could be running to. It was a pretty classic redneck scene. They talked and talked and analyzed and fussed. I stood around, fretting. And then they decided that maybe some parts needed changing. <\/p>\n

And over the next few days, his buddy came and went and came and went. He knew just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to actually get the thing fixed. He switched out a modulator. Changed the pressure overflow valve. Both were pretty much clogged up, he claimed. I have hard water. It eats things up. And he figured out that when you closed a certain line, the continuous water flow stopped. And I had decent pressure and clean water upstairs. But there was no heat. There was really nothing else he could do. He was stumped. <\/p>\n

And then I did what I probably should have done to start with. Called on one of my own connections. A young guy, a real plumber. I\u2019d become friends with him, because he serviced our system at work. I hadn\u2019t wanted to bother him, because he was already working insane hours, fixing emergencies all over the county. But I finally called him, because I figured the situation I was in was an emergency. I left a message and he called right back. He\u2019d stop by the next afternoon, Saturday. That\u2019s great, I said. I won\u2019t be here, because I\u2019ll be at the Horse World Expo in Baltimore, manning the Graber booth. I told him how to get into the basement. If anyone could fix this problem, he could. <\/p>\n

And that Friday evening, the furnace itself just stopped. Quit working completely. I punched the reset button, but it was just dead. That\u2019s all I need, I thought. Now I\u2019ll have to shell out money for a new furnace. I got things to do and places to go this year, travel plans. A new furnace is gonna take a serious bite out of all that. I called my buddy, and amazingly, he was very calm. \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d he said. \u201cI will fix your furnace.\u201d That settled me down a little bit. But still. How could he be so sure? He had never even seen my unit. <\/p>\n

And the next day, I packed a bag and headed on down to the Horse Expo to join the other Graber guys already there. It\u2019s kind of fun to get out, once in a while, just for a change of pace. I don\u2019t know horses, I don\u2019t understand horses, and no, I don\u2019t particularly care for horses, as anyone who has read much of my stuff knows. Being Amish burned any potential for any of that out of me years ago. And a lot of \u201chorse people\u201d are just a little bit strange. They just are. But I can talk horses all day long, and I can sure sell you a real nice horse barn. <\/p>\n

I fretted to my coworkers about my furnace. \u201cNah,\u201d they said. \u201cIf anyone can fix it, Dwylin can.\u201d And he didn\u2019t even get over to my house until late afternoon. Right after he got there, he called. He had instantly figured out why water was flowing through the pipes. Two little pipes went out through the north basement wall, under the back porch and mud room. He\u2019d shut them off, and it just stopped. As he was talking to me, he went outside and opened the little crawl space and shone his light in. \u201cYep,\u201d he said. Those two little pipes are busted. They froze.\u201d Don\u2019t worry about fixing those, I said. We\u2019ll get to them later sometime. I can put a little heater out there in that porch, over the winter. And right there he took care of that. <\/p>\n

Look, I said. It\u2019s late Saturday afternoon, and you\u2019ve been running hard all day. Just get me patched up for now. Get me some pressure, and make that furnace run. We can fix it all as it should be fixed later, when things slow down for you. Like maybe next summer. \u201cI\u2019ll call you when I get the furnace running,\u201d he said. And he did, less than an hour later. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with your furnace,\u201d he told me, as I sagged with relief. \u201cIt\u2019s got perfect spray, perfect flame, and it\u2019s in real good shape.\u201d Man, I can\u2019t tell you how relieved I am, I said. Look, when things slow down, I\u2019m taking you to Vinola\u2019s. We\u2019ll have a few, and I\u2019m buying. He laughed. \u201cYeah, I\u2019ve heard lots of good things about that place. Never been there.\u201d Well, I\u2019m taking you, I said. And get that bill in the mail, too. And charge me your weekend rates. And I thought to myself, as we hung up. Next time use your own connections, when it comes to the big stuff. <\/p>\n

And I got home in time on Sunday afternoon to watch part of the Denver-New England game. Settled in to watch the next one. And there was a little issue of water leaking from one of the tenant\u2019s heaters upstairs, right down onto my kitchen counter. After frantic calls to both the tenant and my plumber, we got it all squared away without too much damage. Except I didn\u2019t get to see the last half of what was one of the best championship games in NFL history. <\/p>\n

But overall, everything kind of wrapped itself up in a good way, I thought. Except it\u2019s still winter. And I\u2019m still weary. I think now and then about how nice it would be to “go south for the winter,\u201d and run with the racy set. I could look all writerly and wear a linen jacket and smoke a pipe. Hang out in quaint cafes and coffee shops, and maybe get a little writing done on a sequel, or some such thing. And I got nothing against any of all that. If that’s you, feel free within yourself, and make no excuses for who you are. I just can’t see it being me. Because here\u2019s the problem with that little scenario. People who have jobs, people who get up and drive to work every day to make a living, people like that can\u2019t do things like that. <\/p>\n

And I am one of those people.
\n********************************************************<\/p>\n

And how about the upcoming Super Bowl? It\u2019ll be played outside, in New York. Here\u2019s hoping for, oh, at least a semi-blizzard. There, I mean. Not where I am. I\u2019d love to see a snow covered field, with more snow coming down hard, all game. The way the winter\u2019s been going up in those parts, I think there might be a decent chance of that. <\/p>\n

And my pick to win? I got nothing against either team, really. The vile Patriots were unceremoniously booted, that\u2019s all I really cared about. And I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing Peyton get another ring. But I\u2019m going with the Seahawks. It\u2019s time for a West Coast team to bring home a ring, I think. Plus I respect Pete Carroll a little more as a coach. If Denver wins, it won’t be because of John Fox’s coaching. Besides, I still feel bad for the Seahawks, the way they were robbed in their last Super Bowl. That game against the Steelers was just flat out the worst officiated Super Bowl in all of history. Maybe one of the worst officiated games, ever, anywhere. Sorry, Steelers fans. It really was that bad. <\/p>\n

So I’m going with Seattle. Seahawks by three. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little vacation Ain’t asking very much. I hate comin’ home to this old broken down apartment, I wish I had a dime for every hole that’s in the carpet… All I want is a life, To drink from a glass from a well that ain’t dry, I’m sick of the crumbs, I want a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12092"}],"version-history":[{"count":79,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12179,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions\/12179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}