My new column from the Summerville News

“SOUTH CHILLED by Arctic winds”
That’s not a headline I want to see, but that’s the one that greeted me on Tuesday morning.
I have an urge to track down Al Gore and punch him in the nose. How dare he try to derail global warming when it’s obvious we need as much of it as we can get?
It’s so cold that I finally wore the big, white sweater my wife gave me early this year. It was made on an island off the coast of Ireland where they know a thing or two about the cold. I visited the Emerald Isle a few years ago. It rained … every day. And it wasn’t the kind of gentle rain that brings steam off the hot pavement. No, it was the kind of sticky, frigid rain that works its way past your clothing and attaches to your shivering soul.
The weather has been lousy in Ireland forever. After thousands of years of grinning and bearing it the Irish came up with a wonderful invention to help them deal with ill-tempered Mother Nature. It’s called drinking.
One day several hundred years ago a famous Irishman named Mick Somethingorother got up early one chilly morn, looked outside and saw buckets of cold, clammy rain falling from a dreary sky. Then and there he uttered one of the most famous remarks in Irish history.
“Mudder McCree! It’s a bloody mess out there. I t’ink I’ll hang aroun’ me house and get drunk!”
Word of this innovative strategy quickly spread through the Irish countryside and the rest is well-documented history … at least for the purposes of this blarney-filled and meandering column.
Speaking of meandering, I don’t do much of it when the weather turns cold. My life becomes a series of short bursts of activity aimed at accomplishing the basic tasks of survival with as little exposure to the elements as possible. (If I had my way, I’d lie down in a warm cave and hibernate, returning to activity just in time to see the Braves head to spring training.)
On the days I pick up my four-year-old from her pre-school, I try to get her in and out of the car as efficiently as possible. That way we get into the house or the school quickly and avoid freezing. Dear daughter, however, seems determined to have me end up like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” – frozen stiff and deader than the Falcons’ playoff hopes.
On Monday, as we sat in the warmth of the vehicle before going into the house, I explained to her. “Rowan, I am going to get you out of the car quickly. Have all of your stuff in your hands when I open the door to get you out. It’s very, very cold and Daddy is about to cry.”
She nodded in agreement. I jumped out into the arctic gusts, opened her door as the frigid wind ravaged my legs and said “Let’s go.”
“I dropped Gibby, Daddy.”
Ahhhhhhh!
I found the baby doll named Gibby on the floorboard and said “C’mon.”
“But I can’t get loose, Daddy.”
I put the doll down and undid her seat belt.
“Don’t forget Gibby, daddy.”
Ahhhhhh!
I picked Gibby up and took my daughter’s hand.
“I forgot my pictures, daddy.”
Ahhhhhh!
An especially cold wind cut through me as I gathered my daughter’s “art” from the seat.”
“C’mon kid,” I said. Then I dropped the doll.
“You dropped Gibby, daddy. Pick her up or she’ll freeze freeze!”
“We’re all going to freeze to death,” I responded, frantically trying to hold the “art,” Gibby and my daughter’s little hand.
Her hand?
“Rowan, where are your mittens?”
“I dropped them in the floor, daddy.”
Ahhhhhh!
We finally made it into the house where we were promptly met by our three cats who angrily demanded I turn up the thermostat. I guess I should have been surprised that the cats had mastered human verbal communication. But the cold was playing tricks on my brain and after all, they had a point. It was chilly in the house.

Jimmy Espy is a staff writer for The Summerville News. He can be reached at Hoodcsa@aol.com or at 706-857-2494. He blogs at Espysoutpost.blogspot.com