We went through some incredibly sever winters in the late 40’s and early 50’s. One year as we were coming home from a visit south to see family for the Christmas holidays the bay where we lived was frozen over. This meant that the only way to get home was to leave our boat in a bay that had open water and to walk through the woods the remaining distance to our house.
As my sister and I were still very small and the path was uneven and wound this way and that through the forest dad found it necessary to eventually carry both of us. Dawna was the fortunate one as she got to ride on dad’s shoulders but I being the older brother, remember a whole eleven months, got to ride lower down with my legs around my dad’s waist and his hand below my bottom. This worked fine for a while but the distance was several miles and under the trees not everything was frozen solid. What this meant was that as dad walked along and got more tired and more tired I started slipping farther and farther down as his arms weakened by my weight when suddenly without warning down I fell right into a big puddle and got soaking wet.
Boy was I mad. I can still remember it as it was still a long way home and I was made to walk the rest of the way-soaking wet. It was a while before I got really warm as we lived in a shake shack made of poles and tarpaper, heated with a wood stove. As I look back on it making me walk was what probably kept me from getting hypothermia as it was some time before the house warmed up enough to take the chill off me and the house.
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