Dear Folks, I've lived Western New York for many, many years and every one of those years had six seasons--Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Winter and WINTER!!! I know that at my age I tend to forget some of the small details of the past but I SWEAR this winter is one of the most bitterly cold ones we've ever had. If any one of you can refresh my memory of a winter that was colder than this one, let me know the details. I'd appreciate it. (OK, I do admit that in February 1979 the temperature dipped down to the unheard of minus 21 degrees!) For the past number of days now, (or has it been weeks??) the temperature has been hovering between a high of zero degrees to ten degrees above with an overnight low in the minus zero range. Right now it's below zero and dropping. Heaven only knows what the wind chill factor is right now. Yesterday I steeled myself to get in my car, hoped I could make it out of my driveway and at the last minute I chickened out. Let's face it, never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. However, today I KNEW that if I didn't return my books to the library before they became overdue and stop at B-Kwik for milk and a few other things, I knew that if I didn't, I would REALLY hate myself tomorrow and I also knew that without milk, my Cheerios for breakfast would be much too crispy than I care for. So this afternoon I bundled myself up to the nth degree (picture Nanuk of the North), pushed myself out of the door (with heart pounding), got in my car praying that my battery hadn't pooped out, it started up nicely and I put the pedal to the metal and barreled out the garage in order to plow through the drift right in front of the garage door. I even managed to plow through the snow at the end of the driveway where the snow plow tends to dump it and I eventually was on my merry way into the village of Youngstown, freezing all the way on the short drive. I managed to return my library books, checked out a couple other neat scary books, get back into the car and drive the short distance to B-Kwik. When I got out of the car there and walked just the few feet into the store, the wind had picked up considerably and all of a sudden I knew that it wasn't just the discomfort of low temperatures but that due to the wind it was lethal weather. Not only was there the danger of severe frostbite within minutes outside but if I would happen to trip and fall down, they wouldn't have found me until spring. I got the chance to warm up in B-Kwik and then managed to load all of my groceries in my car. In spite of wearing gloves, my fingers were freezing to death by the time I got behind the wheel and it was only when I got close to home that my car started blowing warm air into the interior. It was an agonizing job for me to carry all the groceries into the house, get the car back in the garage and plow my feet through the snow to get to my side door. Note: my driveway has already been plowed out four times during the past week. It wasn't until a number of hours later that my chilled bones finally warmed up. In the meantime the three most predominant sounds I continued to hear were (1) my almost nonstop furnace running, (2) the snowplows going by and (3) the wind howling through the bare branches. Although I'd like to apologize for this dismal message, I won't. Hey, if I have to go through the misery of winter around here, I'm gonna spread the gloom around among all of you equally. :-) vee