Hold the wind, thanks

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

Somebody said, "What do you think of that wind?"

"I don't know," I said. "What would you say to a poke in the eye?"

There are good reasons to love all sorts of weather. I'm a big fan of sunshine and snow. I'm very content to sit in front of a window on a rainy day and read a book. In fact, I even like walking in the rain, and I've been known to howl at a good lightening storm. There's no good reason to like wind. Show me a person who loves strong winds and I'll show you someone who's been kicked in the head by a farm animal. I know there are people who chase tornadoes around. When one of them gets hit by a flying sheep, I feel bad … for the sheep. There are people who go stand beaches when a hurricane is approaching. They show them on TV sometimes. Watching from the warmth and comfort of my living room I can only think, "When that idiot gets washed out to sea, there will be one less tailgater on the Florida highways."

Last week, when winds in the Valley gusted up to 75 mph, I could only think of the disaster that was last March. Those of us who could get to the office went about the business of putting out a paper. While we did that, pieces of our building flew away, and a giant tree fell on the building. The power was out most of the day, and one of our circulation people had to drive the delivery van -- which is basically a billboard on wheels -- to Anchorage to pick up the newspapers. She's braver than I. The winds last week were almost as strong as those ones, and they had the added bonuses of bone-chilling temperatures and lots of snow to blow around.

On Wednesday morning, going out to start the car, I broke my nose on the screendoor. Seems a bunch of snow had drifted onto the porch. I'd like to point out that the word "drift" is very misleading. It sounds fluffy and pleasant. In fact, the stuff on our porch was like tufa rock, and there was nothing pleasant about it. Unable to muscle the door open, I headed for the garage. The automatic opener has attitude and, though the door was apparently frozen to the ground, the door wasn't about to give up. It opened, leaving an alarming amount of rubber stuff on the garage floor. Outside the garage was another drift, about 6 feet tall. I put on the Yaktrax and headed out for the car. Just beyond the safety of the garage, my hat, scarf, coat and one boot blew off. Clinging to my pants for dear life, I dropped to all fours and crawled to the car. Somebody once told me that wind chill is really all in your head. He said the actual temperature isn't any lower; it just feels that way.

Let me tell you. When you're crawling to your car at 6:30 a.m. with no coat, no hat, no scarf and only one boot, the wind chill is very real. By the time I made it inside the car, I was pretty sure it was 211 degrees below zero outside. I was also sure the heater wasn't going to do me much good since the wind had grabbed my car door and deposited it on top of my neighbor's camper -- which was on top of another neighbor's house.

On the way to work there were swarms of snow ripping across the road, blocking my vision and peeling the paint off my car. Some guy in a giant SUV tried to stop at the corner, but he blew across the Palmer/Wasilla Highway, instead. Fortunately, the guy who almost T-boned him was so blinded by blowing snow that he never even saw the near-miss. He just waved at me and smiled as he blew by. Halfway to work I had to pass a shed that had stalled in my lane. Another shed was stuck in a nearby ditch. I did make pretty good time that morning, though. All of the traffic lights had blown away, so there wasn't the usual stop-and-go routine to slow me down. The only suggestion of normalcy Wednesday morning was the sight of Vic Kohring standing at the Four Corners intersection waving at prospective voters who honked cheerily and waved back.

In the parking lot at work, my sweater, the other boot and both socks disappeared in a cloud of stinging snow. "Just let someone ask me what I think of this wind," I thought. "I'll poke him in the eye."

Some people say the wind blows, but Frank Ameduri thinks it sucks.