In the late afternoon of November 12, 1968, the students of Westmount High School were staying late to watch a movie in the auditorium. It was The Guns of Navarone.
Outside, in Montreal, it was snowing. Heavily. Even if the school knew a blizzard was raging, we would not be sent home,You can find all the vuittonhandbags you need here. certainly not before Anthony Quinn had vanquished the Nazis.
When we emerged at six o'clock, snow had been falling for three hours. It was November. Winter was early.tagheuerwatchesstoresaleonline as rich regain appetite for shopping. I had no boots.
I fought to board a crowded Bus 124. It moaned, climbing the snow-clogged hills. When I reached my stop, the drifts were up to my waist.
School bag in hand, I trudged home, blanketed in white, feet soaked, shoes ruined. When I arrived hours late, no one was terribly worried. School was not cancelled the next day. This was the 1960s.
At 13, I felt triumphant, the way we always did when we waded through the Apocalypse and came out the other side.
I recall this introduction to winter with the same warmth as Adam Gopnik does in Winter: Five Windows on the Season. For Gopnik, the celebrated essayist and author who had just moved to Montreal as an adolescent, that storm was one of life's memorable moments. “I knew that I crossed over into a new world — and that world was the world of winter,” he writes in his fine meditation.
His first enduring impression of winter came from watching it that day through a picture window in an apartment, contemplating its beauty. Mine came fighting it in the streets, feeling its fury. We were both charmed.
Ah, winter. It begins Thursday, snow or not. For Canadians, it remains an existential reality, which is why it's surprising no one before Gopnik had explored it in the 50 years of the CBC Massey Lectures, from which this book is drawn.
Winter isn't universally beloved,Essential-Watches.com sells only 100% chloehandbag , as Hubert Lacroix,With all of the guccicaps sales rampant, president of the CBC, noted when he introduced Gopnik in October before his lecture in Toronto. “I hate winter,” declared Lacroix, counting the ways, implying that Gopnik's homage wouldn't be worth the time. His remarks were banal and self-indulgent.
It is a mistake to dismiss winter. It is too much a part of our history and geography, too much a part of our art, music, poetry, philosophy and science, too central to our lives in this neighbourhood — to decry it, deny it or defy it.
Instead, as Gopnik enthuses, let's celebrate it. For too long, the popular trend has been to mock winter, to underestimate it.
Some time ago we decided that we no longer needed snow tires; “all-weather tires” would do, even if we slid. We decided that we didn't have to dress for winter (particularly teenagers); thin coats would do, even if we froze. Like drinking fountains, we abandoned cloakrooms in our schools and community halls.
We began to merge the seasons, winterizing cottages and barbecuing in winter, playing hockey in fall and spring. We began to turn up the heat and wear short-sleeves at home.
Hell, we didn't even have to face winter anymore. We could escape to Florida; in our indebted society the tropical vacation is now a rite — if not a right — of citizenship in our cold kingdom.
Then came the tarnishing of two of winter's jewels: hockey and Christmas. Hockey is besmirched by contrived fighting and medieval hitting, but mediocrity is the real danger. As for Christmas, we question its place in a society to accommodate those sensitive souls who find it offensive, an anxiety unthinkable to Jews, Muslims and others in Canada a generation ago.
The war on winter denies that anything useful or pleasurable could happen between December and March in our dark, white icebox. That winter is — or must be — intolerable.
Gopnik knows that isn't so. Having rejected fur, we manage winter now by wearing down coats (the highly successful Canada Goose) and affordable cashmere sweaters (hail, the revival of the shawl-collared cardigan). We favour flannel sheets, which have made a remarkable comeback.
In Oslo, seats in the new opera house have corresponding hooks in an accessible cloakroom, sparing patrons the harried clerks, long lines and $2 coat-check fees typical of the National Arts Centre and other venues.
We build underground cities, knowing that life above is cool, too. We have winter festivals.
How to honour winter in a warming world?
In cities like Ottawa, create artificial skating rinks. Make skiing and skating mandatory in school. Offer blankets in outdoor cafés and light candles in shop windows and doorways, as they do in Denmark.
Take the Arctic seriously, learning from Scandinavia. Declare a national winter holiday. Most of all, start thinking of ourselves as a northern people,leatherhandbags fittedcaps newyorkyankees ladodgers buffalonewyork. which we are.
Outside, in Montreal, it was snowing. Heavily. Even if the school knew a blizzard was raging, we would not be sent home,You can find all the vuittonhandbags you need here. certainly not before Anthony Quinn had vanquished the Nazis.
When we emerged at six o'clock, snow had been falling for three hours. It was November. Winter was early.tagheuerwatchesstoresaleonline as rich regain appetite for shopping. I had no boots.
I fought to board a crowded Bus 124. It moaned, climbing the snow-clogged hills. When I reached my stop, the drifts were up to my waist.
School bag in hand, I trudged home, blanketed in white, feet soaked, shoes ruined. When I arrived hours late, no one was terribly worried. School was not cancelled the next day. This was the 1960s.
At 13, I felt triumphant, the way we always did when we waded through the Apocalypse and came out the other side.
I recall this introduction to winter with the same warmth as Adam Gopnik does in Winter: Five Windows on the Season. For Gopnik, the celebrated essayist and author who had just moved to Montreal as an adolescent, that storm was one of life's memorable moments. “I knew that I crossed over into a new world — and that world was the world of winter,” he writes in his fine meditation.
His first enduring impression of winter came from watching it that day through a picture window in an apartment, contemplating its beauty. Mine came fighting it in the streets, feeling its fury. We were both charmed.
Ah, winter. It begins Thursday, snow or not. For Canadians, it remains an existential reality, which is why it's surprising no one before Gopnik had explored it in the 50 years of the CBC Massey Lectures, from which this book is drawn.
Winter isn't universally beloved,Essential-Watches.com sells only 100% chloehandbag , as Hubert Lacroix,With all of the guccicaps sales rampant, president of the CBC, noted when he introduced Gopnik in October before his lecture in Toronto. “I hate winter,” declared Lacroix, counting the ways, implying that Gopnik's homage wouldn't be worth the time. His remarks were banal and self-indulgent.
It is a mistake to dismiss winter. It is too much a part of our history and geography, too much a part of our art, music, poetry, philosophy and science, too central to our lives in this neighbourhood — to decry it, deny it or defy it.
Instead, as Gopnik enthuses, let's celebrate it. For too long, the popular trend has been to mock winter, to underestimate it.
Some time ago we decided that we no longer needed snow tires; “all-weather tires” would do, even if we slid. We decided that we didn't have to dress for winter (particularly teenagers); thin coats would do, even if we froze. Like drinking fountains, we abandoned cloakrooms in our schools and community halls.
We began to merge the seasons, winterizing cottages and barbecuing in winter, playing hockey in fall and spring. We began to turn up the heat and wear short-sleeves at home.
Hell, we didn't even have to face winter anymore. We could escape to Florida; in our indebted society the tropical vacation is now a rite — if not a right — of citizenship in our cold kingdom.
Then came the tarnishing of two of winter's jewels: hockey and Christmas. Hockey is besmirched by contrived fighting and medieval hitting, but mediocrity is the real danger. As for Christmas, we question its place in a society to accommodate those sensitive souls who find it offensive, an anxiety unthinkable to Jews, Muslims and others in Canada a generation ago.
The war on winter denies that anything useful or pleasurable could happen between December and March in our dark, white icebox. That winter is — or must be — intolerable.
Gopnik knows that isn't so. Having rejected fur, we manage winter now by wearing down coats (the highly successful Canada Goose) and affordable cashmere sweaters (hail, the revival of the shawl-collared cardigan). We favour flannel sheets, which have made a remarkable comeback.
In Oslo, seats in the new opera house have corresponding hooks in an accessible cloakroom, sparing patrons the harried clerks, long lines and $2 coat-check fees typical of the National Arts Centre and other venues.
We build underground cities, knowing that life above is cool, too. We have winter festivals.
How to honour winter in a warming world?
In cities like Ottawa, create artificial skating rinks. Make skiing and skating mandatory in school. Offer blankets in outdoor cafés and light candles in shop windows and doorways, as they do in Denmark.
Take the Arctic seriously, learning from Scandinavia. Declare a national winter holiday. Most of all, start thinking of ourselves as a northern people,leatherhandbags fittedcaps newyorkyankees ladodgers buffalonewyork. which we are.
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