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WEATHER Beep. Beep...... Beep. Beep. "What in the world is that" said Valerie's angry sleep- filled voice. "It's only 1.30 in the morning" she continued, obviously getting angrier as the Beep, Beep went on and on. "It's my remote thermometer" I said. "It's telling us that it's below zero outside." I won't bore you or alarm you with the discussion that tran- spired between us then, but it did serve to remind me how much Canadians' depend on the weather for conversational topics. I can safely bet that each of you talk about the weather, with everyone you meet, most every day. This is particu- larly true when we get into winter and the temperature plummets and wind chill factors are discussed on every ra- dio station and over every breakfast table. The other day I tried to raise a conversation with a friend regarding the offer of a 'free' building on the Hill that the owner had made to Council. Those buildings were among the over 10,000 that I was responsible for in my last job, serviced from my District Office in Kingston and I was anxious to nostalgically discuss them. My friend, however, would have no part of it since he had his own tale on the weather. "Can you imagine" he said. "After we got home, there I am crawling through the crawl space (how appropriate) at 30 degrees below with a flashlight in one hand and a hair dryer in the other on a long extension cord trying to thaw out a frozen water line." I have a similar problem when its 30 degrees below with a strong east wind, a water line running over a window top freezes. Only once this year so far, but who knows. Why don't you get it fixed I hear you say. Well in the summer I forget and in winter it's too late and too cold. I think we all feel somewhat superior to people who live in warmer climes since we have to brave the snow, sleet, freezing rain and sub zero temperatures. I must digress here for a brief chat on Centigrade versus Fahrenheit. Iwas raised in the latter but young people don't have any idea when you say miles or temperatures in Fahrenheit. know the rules for conversion and can do it reasonably quickly in my head -- centigrade degrees x two minus 10% plus 32 gives you the Fahrenheit i.e. 20 Centi- grade X 2 = 40 minus 10% (4) =36 + 32 = 68 F. I prefer Centigrade for winter. It is more macho to have minus degrees but in summer I prefer Fahrenheit. Sixty eight degrees F feels warmer to me than Twenty C. These days many of us can take the approach that weve proven our hardiness just to be living up here and feel no disgrace about migrating to warmer climates in winter. The natives down there have seen birds arrive from the north in the fall along with millions of Canadians so they call us Snow Birds. I wonder what the Portuguese and other Euro- pean and Asian countries call us. It seems to me (and this is typically Canadian) that winters were tougher when I was growing up. My mother warned us about chilblains as did Valerie's and frostbite was more common -- heavens -- I haven't heard of a case of either for years. Irecall one of my grandsons remarking on my red cheeks and was surprised when I told him that I had both cheeks frostbitten when I was about his age. I remember the arguments for and against rubbing snow on the frostbitten spot. Probably today the protective clothing and especially the boots are better than we had. This winter, so far, has been cold, very cold but not cold enough to discourage my dog Buffy from insisting I take her for her walk before 7.00 a.m. each day. She won't wear a coat or boots (how ridiculous anyway when you think of it) and can move along quite well on three feet -- changing the frozen one for-another as required. But cheer up. The days are getting longer and spring is coming. So while we'll never stop talking constantly about the weather the contents of our talk will gradually warm up Continued on page 9