Sing a song of winter

I believe Gilles Vigneault said it best. We sang this song in Grade 11 French and I've never forgotten it. My attempt at translation follows...let's see just how well I recall M. Yake's teachings.

MON PAYS (EXCERPT)

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Dans la blanche cérémonie
Où la neige au vent se marie
Dans ce pays de poudrerie
Mon père a fait bâtir maison
Et je m'en vais être fidèle
À sa manière, à son modèle
La chambre d'amis sera telle
Qu'on viendra des autres saisons
Pour se bâtir à côté d'elle

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon refrain ce n'est pas un refrain, c'est rafale
Ma maison ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est froidure
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver...
-------
My country's not a country, it is winter
My garden's not a garden, it's the plain
My road is not a road, it's snow
My country's not a country, it is winter.

In the white ceremony
Where the wind marries the snow
In this powdery country
My father had a house built
And I will be faithful
To his manner, to his model
The room will be so friendly
That we'll come from other seasons to build next to it

My country's not a country, it is winter
My chorus isn't a chorus, it's a gust
My house isn't my house, it's the Cold
My country isn't a country, it is winter

------
The wind chill factor out there tonight is -26. The squalls swirl in from the northwest, whipping the snow into malevolent foggy shapes. At times it's hard to see across the street. Countless drivers have found themselves taking the ditches less travelled. Somebody just walked by, struggling against the gale, hatless and gloveless, risking amputation.

Ah, it must be winter.

This is that most Canadian of seasons, the one that separates the schmucks from the Canucks. You can run from winter, but within our national boundaries, you can't hide. Even Vancouver and Victoria have been battered by icy blasts in recent years.

I believe in dressing for the season. Besides a toque and gloves, I have been known to don a scarf, long underwear, and even a balaclava as the temperature spirals down into the abyss. I may look ugly, but I'm ugly and warm...which is more than I can say for many people I pass on the street.
I used to shake my head at the number of university students who shivered their way into my store after last call, clad for May and complaining bitterly about how cold they were. I'd ask them if they lost their coats and they'd flash me a look of utter contempt. Some would tell me they wanted to save a dollar on the coat check, as if a dollar would buy them and their friends a round. Others would simply stare and me and explain, as if to a moron, that coats, hats, and gloves were Not Cool.
"But that's the point, isn't it?" I loved toying with drunk people, watching their minds spinning in the boozy slush.
"Huh?"
"You don't want to be cool, you wear a coat. And gloves. And a hat. You look pretty damn cool--"
"--hey, thanks, dude--"
"--in fact, you look half-frozen to me. What the hell were you thinking, man? It's thirty below out there!"
More often than not that would elicit some pitiful rendition of a rebel yell and our plastered specimen--"Leader of Tomorrow", I reminded myself-- would toddy off, six sheets to the winter wind. I often wondered if any of them ever came out of their stupid stupors with blackened toes and nerveless fingertips. I hoped so and doubted so in equal measure. God does seem to love the drunks.

The drivers are another story. Sallying forth in their SUVs with four-wheel drive, traction control, stability assist and anti-lock brakes, they consider themselves above Mother Nature (and pretty much everything else sharing the road with them). They insist on doing the speed limit even if they find themselves moving through a drive-in movie screen, and they gobble up every car length other drivers try to leave. They always seem so shocked when the laws of gravity and thermodynamics catch up. Of course, they blame the roads.
In my Canada, every single driver would have to retake their road test every fifty seven months. That's three months shy of five years, and the reason it's not an even number is to ensure that sooner or later, you'll have to take your test in winter conditions. It's not a perfect solution, but I think it would at least weed out a few of the people who treat highways like giant toboggan runs.

I like winter, although I have to admit as I age that most of what I like about it involves standing apart from it. I enjoy watching the streamers of snow floating across my field of vision...especially when my field of vision is on the other side of some high-efficiency windows. I like coming in from shovelling the driveway, waiting for my glasses to defrost, and discovering a savory stew...or a cup of hot chocolate...or a mug of hot apple cider...waiting for me. I love climbing under my jersey knit bedsheets and listening to the wind screaming around the eaves.

That song up there makes reference to my dad's house, with good reason. You haven't seen winter until you've spent some time up at Rose Point. One night in the winter of 1983 the windchill was a testicle-shrivelling -72...and there wasn't much wind. Just last winter we were confronted by a temperature approaching minus 40. The ice gets so thick on the river most Januarys that cars can and do drive across.

And "my house isn't my house, it's the Cold"...ask my wife. She will not bed down unless the bedroom window's open and the ceiling fan's going...it doesn't matter if it's minus umpty-chicken outside. The ceiling fan's supposedly for circulation, but what it actually does is turn our bedroom into a Frigidaire.

Speaking of which, I'm heading there presently, just as soon as I get this snowsuit on...