Village Squire, 1976-01, Page 8It's like a scene from a Christmas card', the bright sun
gleaming off the snow in almost eye -smarting brightness; the
• black, naked trees trailing long shadows towards the north; the
old barn standing starkly against the horizon on the rim of the
hill. It's the kind of reward you get for enduring the
less -enjoyable parts of a snowbelt winter.
Endure --for many people that's the key word. Winter isn't
something to enjoy but something simply to be endured, like a
migrane head ache. For others, the more affluent, it's something
to be escaped, either for the duration or for at least a couple of
weeks every year. One sometimes has the impression that there
are more Canadians in Florida, Jamaica and other southern
haunts in January and February than there are in Canada. There
often seem to be only two kinds of Canadians: those who go south
for the winter, and those who can't afford either the time or the
money but wish the heck they could. Winter is a totally negative
experience for Canadians one would think to listen to them.
But think back to times you remember when there were really
big winter storms, the kind that brought everything grinding to a
halt. Think not so much of what people said, but of how they
looked (if you could see them at all under all that clothing). My
personal memories of big storms like the famous blizzard of 1971
are of people with a strange cheerful look on their face, a look that
seemed to say "We can lick anything nature can throw at us."
We are, so the psychologists tell us, shaped by our
environment and so the personality of Canadians and of
snow-belters has been shaped by the pattern of the weather.
Canadians have been .toughened and strengthened by more than
a century of learning to live with the elements. A good deal of our
reluctance to live with winter today stems not from the fact that
we can't take it, but from the fact we've grown ashamed of
winter
For the .pioneers, the weather was simply a fact of life. There
was no other choice but to live with it, so they did. There was no
sense complaining, even though because of the lack of good
heating system, better transportation and communications
winters were much harder for these people than they are for us.
All this started to change more recently, at a time when
Canadians had less to complain about than earlier. Modern
communication such as radio, movies and finally television began
to show us •the kind of lives people in other parts of the world
'Were leading. Our modern television is dominated with. American
programs and American programs are dominated by southern
California Hollywood, the fairy-tale land where almost all
American television shows and movies now originate. The land
where it never snows, where it hardly even seems to rain,
particularly on the magic screen. The only time we see snow
scums to be in some tragic picture where people are starving to
death, or free/ing to death or just plain miserable. Everyone that
is happy Yves in the land of eternal sunshine. Is it any wonder,
grin this brainwashing several hours a day, seven days a week,
trtty-Ivo week, a year that we somehow think of snow as a plague
upon us, like the locust?
I List like everything else on the magic screen, we've come to
think of eternal summer as the boat we've missed; just like we
think of forever beautiful men and women that seem to inhabit
the screen while we have to live in a world of blemishes and
bulges So we hate winter.
We also hate winter because of our deep -planted work ethic.
Winter, you see, gets in the road of work. How can you go about
buliness as usual if you're up to your armpits in snow? But in a
land where work seems to be almost a religion, we insist on going
ahead with business as usual. So we must be at work on time,
even if we can't see across the street. The show must go on, even
if it means traffic jams three miles long because of fender
benders.
There is also in nearly all of us, the "mountain climber
syndrome Most of us will never see Everest, but have the road
half -blocked with snow and we'll try to conquer it even for so
flimsy on excuse as needing a pack of cigarettes from the corner
store. We try to prove our skill, our courage by beating our way
through the worst conditions in our car. And when we fail and get
stuck, we curse not our own stupidity, but winter.
The car: it's both a blessing and a curse in winter. The old
horse and cutter may seem romantic, but ask someone who used
to travel in one and he'll likely choose the car anyday. Once i1 the
The most important
•
c. Day
of
s �
your
life
1.
•We feature clothing
bridal party.
•Gowns for the ladies.
•Formal rentals for the men and a
complete selection of accessories.
New Spring lines arriving every day.
Regular dresses and a good selection of
Brand Name Sportswear.
for the entire
N1( ('an Suit you
kw every occasiOI1
FREEIRII
FORIRRL AERTRbS
80 ONTARIO ST.
STRATFORD , 273-3421
VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1976, 7
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