Deep Freeze

The city has been in the grip of a cold snap for several days. It began with a blizzard - not one of those picturesque snowstorms with the fat snowflakes whirling about like wedding planners in June, but that mean and stinging hard snow that abrades like powdered glass. The drifts grew, the temperatures plummeted, and now here we are.

The nighttime temperatures have been down in the minus 30s. The meteorologists have been feeding our need for weather drama by telling us how much colder the windchill makes it feel.

Wayne hasn't been sleeping in the car. I'm glad. My recurring vision of stumbling over a corpse has never included the possibility of a human popsicle in one of our parked cars, and I'd like to keep it that way.

There was a man selling Our Voice street newspaper downtown today, just around the corner from Starbucks. He was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning up against a building, with his vendor tag clearly displayed and the papers fanned out in front of him - and a cup for the anticipated twonie. He was wearing a navy balaclava, pulled so that only a small oval of his forehead could be seen. It was pale. There was frost on the top of his balaclava. He had one leg tucked in, and the other stretched out - seemingly clad only in navy sweats, dark socks and black runners. He was wearing a thick navy winter coat, and I had to watch for several seconds before I was reassured that he was still breathing.

When I got home from dropping Candas off at the college, there was a young man ringing our doorbell. He had a shovel, so it was safe to assume he was looking to shovel our walk even though it was more than minus 20. I had done a quick job the night of the storm - shovelling three times in the bitter cold. He was dressed in a similar fashion to the Our Voice vendor, except the newspaper guy had mitts. This young man had bare hands and a grey toque.

We did a quick negotiation in the freezing January sunlight. He was looking to clear the sidewalk, and would do it right down to bare concrete if I had an ice pick and $20. He'd lost his gloves at an earlier shovelling job. I loaned him lined leather mittens, a good ice scraper, and he set to work. While he was scraping, I was inside doing a quick editing job. He worked hard and fast and so it was only about a half hour later that he was done - right down to the concrete, as promised. He gave me back the mittens and the scraper, thanking me for their use, and I gave him $25. I was tempted to offer him hot chocolate, but he was already shouldering his shovel and pushing off to see if he could make more money. I considered giving him the mittens - but I've found the only thing that seems to keep my hands warm is to wear leather gloves with thinsulate inside these fleece-lined leather mittens. Although I bought the mittens at Winners and the gloves at WalMart and they didn't come to more than $25, I don't have time to look for replacements.

I hope he comes back after the next snowstorm. Next time, hot chocolate for sure.