My father, Howard Helker of Sherwood, Wisconsin, is an upstanding man. He is generous to a fault, treats my mom like a queen, and attends church on a reasonably regular basis. He pays his taxes, I think, sticks mostly to two cocktails before dinner, and disperses his Packer tickets to his children while very rarely attending a game himself. Which is why you’d never guess that in my youth he was a sadistic man who took great pleasure in the misery of others—and by the word “others” I mean, principally, me. Here’s what I mean. During summers I was expected to haul my carcass out of bed at a reasonable hour and chip in with chores such as mowing or building a shed or watering newly-planted trees. I think you will agree that that’s bad enough, but Dad’s malevolent streak didn’t end there. After winter snowstorms I was sent out to shovel the driveway and sidewalks despite the presence of a PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL snow blower in the garage.
     “Shoveling is good for you,” he’d say. “It builds character.”
     Parents always look out for you in that manner.
     So I’d trudge outside, in conditions Admiral Peary would have quailed at, and set to work on the eight-mile-long driveway which has since inexplicably shrunk to resemble pretty much every other driveway in the city of Menasha. And while we’re at it, yes, my siblings and I did walk to school barefoot, and yes, it was uphill both ways.
     For recreation during those harsh winters I of course ice fished, and hunted rabbits, and during high school my friend Dennis and I spent winter evenings at the Menasha Dam on the Fox River, enticing the occasional walleye with minnows on floating jigheads but mostly catching lawyers (burbot.) It was almost always cold, and sometimes bitterly so. I remember walking into the warmth of the house after some trips with my hands throbbing so badly I felt like sobbing, and looking in the mirror and seeing the telltale flat gray splotches of frostbite on my face. I felt a touch of masochistic pride in that, and I think that as a community we used to measure fortitude by conditions endured and by how far we walked in to ice fish or hunt deer, and not by how big of a truck or ATV we used to drive there.
     I guess I’m saying that there has been a general “wimping out” over winter, and not just because they’ve been milder as of late. Somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that we live in Florida, where cold is an aberration. Maybe it’s the fault of the television stations, which, in my opinion, fill time slots by requiring meteorologists to play up even the most minor weather events. Witness the “weather deck,” where news stations send the poor sap with the least seniority to get drizzled on:
     “Hello, this is Kristen Johnson, with a January 14, 2013 TV Eight  Sp…Sp…Special Update. As you can see, we are currently experiencing a deadly ‘wintry mix.’ Lows in the mid-twenties are expected throughout much of the state tonight, with even an occasional slippery patch on the roads. Please use extreme caution, and, for God’s sake, don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to. As a service to our viewers, we here at TV Eight remind you that in situations like this it is best to select which family member you are going to eat first, should it come to that. Sports is next. Will Brett Favre retire, or not? Back to you, Bob.”
     I guess if I’m going to say that we’ve been wimping out over winter I have to be willing to point the finger at myself, too. I escaped a little bit of last winter by going on a Caribbean cruise with my wife, Lori. Wisconsinites—and people from the Upper Midwest and Ontario in general—were easy to recognize in conversation, not just because of the accent but because of our big-hearted nature. Many of us were also easy to spot physically. Those big hearts frequently require big bodies to carry them around, although there was no truth to the rumor that the ship took on a pronounced starboard list whenever two Badgers went to the can at the same time.
     On St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, we commiserated with fellow Wisconsin natives while we sweated in sultry tropical heat aboard an open-air tour bus.
     “Whaddaya think?” asked the man next to me, who had retired in some Florida enclave but seemed a little homesick for Wisconsin.
     “It’s pretty, but man, it’s hot,” I said, and we talked—a little longingly, I think—about the weather back home. I had been dreaming about this trip for a year, and now that it was reality a part of me wished I was on a frozen lake, growing snot icicles and munching on venison sausage and waiting for tip-up flags to fly.
     Maybe this year, at long last, we’ll get a real Wisconsin winter, the kind we used to have, with that high-sunny-skies bracing cold which sucks the air out of your lungs when you step outside. The kind of winter which has us ice-fishing by deer season and which lingers well into turkey hunting. You know, the kind which builds character.
     You can have it-- I have quite enough already.
     It’s time to fire up the snow blower, Dad.