Thoughts on a Twelve-below Day

Twelve below zero this morning.
The outside cats
are now loving the life
of enclosed porch cats
and compete for the privilege
of sleeping directly on the radiator.
The house is toasty warm
thanks to Den and his autumn wood-cutting.
It is hard for me to remember that it is cold outside.
The sink that Den left dripping
because running water helps prevent freezing--
I accidently turned it off after washing my hands.
Ooooooops.
Two hours later,
the pipe was frozen at the wellhead.
We now have an extension cord
running from the garage
to a light in the well
for warmth.

So far, winter has been fun in first grade in the valley.
(Interesting.
I live on "the mountain"
and I teach in "the valley"
and everyone around here knows exactly
where those seemingly unnamed places are.)
Last week I took my class out for recess
and there was a patch of ice on the pavement.
I remembered the Peanuts kids
revelling in childhood ice-sliding
and, after a semi-silly reminder
that ice is slippery
and a warning to be careful,
I turned my class loose.
There were squeals of delight
and huge, toothy,
or sometimes toothless,
smiles.
The next day at recess,
we went to the ballfield.
Amid the frozen elk tracks,
kids had fun hacking up snowman remnants with sticks,
yes, sticks,
and "skunking" each other
by drawing white stripes
down friends' backs
with balls of snow.
Yesterday
our janitor Doug said,
"Hey Shaffner,  
You're a science person.
Look at those bumps.
The wind blew snow into rolls."
I could have hugged him, I was so excited.
Snow rolls are an extremely rare phenomenon.
Fifty-six years of Pennsylvania winters
and I had never seen a snow roll
'til now.  
I settled for a thankful enthusiastic handshake
and immediately brought my class to the lobby doors
to see the snow rolls.
During lunch,

Claw, our math puppet, explores a snow roller.

I bundled up
and took
our math puppet's picture in a snow roll
so the kids could see the details up close
since the temperatures
had already started on their sub-zero journey.

At twelve below today,
school is cancelled.
Instead, I spent part of the morning making cut-out cookies
for our Groundhog Day assembly
coming later this week.
Punxsutawney is a neighboring town
but many kids will never make it there
to watch Punsxy Phil make his official prognostication
so we will pretend we are at Gobbler's Knob
and dance
and sing
and wear goofy hats
and pull a groundhog puppet out of a garbage can
and listen carefully to what he has to say.
Most people are hoping for no shadow--
spring is just around the corner--
but, hey,
winter is good, too. 

Remembering Walt Shaffner

Denny's dad Walt was the ninth child in a family of thirteen.
He was born in Orviston,
learned to walk in Howard
(our cat is now named Howard)
and ran from the Deer Park in Snowshoe
when his house caught fire.
All that was saved from the blaze
was a deer hoof hat rack,
his dad's 32 Remington,
and the Edison record player.

Walt didn't speak until he was five.
"Him want cookie!" his younger brother Fred would say.
When Walt did start talking,
he made friends all up and down Mill Road.
Life in Clearfield was about school,
at least until the eighth grade,
but mostly life was about baseball.
He became known as "Slick" Shaffner
and was offered a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates
but couldn't afford the bus ticket to Pittsburgh.
He became a CCC boy instead
in Cross Forks
where he planted thousands of pines in the Pennsylvania mountains.

Walt signed on to help build Harbison Walker's third brickyard
and stayed to ultimately run a lift truck.
He married nurse Golda and became a family man.
Walt taught his sons
Paul (Bozo)
and Denny (Fozdick)
how to play catch,
rake stone,
plant trees,
cut brush,
build bonfires,
cut wood,
graft trees,
pick apples,
raise calves, 
mow backyards and graveyards,
shear trees,
ride on running boards,
drive Gravely tractors
and pickup trucks,
shoot a 22,
shovel coal,
raise turkeys,
kill snakes,
sleep on the ground,
cook bacon and eggs,
tear down buildings,
straighten nails,
recycle copper pipe,
build tree stands,
skin deer,
and shower by flashlight
when you didn't want anyone to know you were home.

He taught his boys about gift-giving:
"If you don't know what to get her,
get her something you like."

Walt also taught Paul and Denny to take a risk.
In 1956, he took out a second mortgage
to buy one hundred acres of
overgrown farm on the Rockton Mountain
and worked to build a second home on the old barn foundation.
It is that financial risk
that has allowed us to raise our family here on the mountain.

When Walt wasn't working,
he would tell scary stories of the Side Hill Gouge
and visit abandoned "Julius houses"
on Sunday drives in the Rambler.
Those drives often ended at Miller Dairy
where Whitehouse was a favorite.
Ice cream was also a treat during the Ed Sullivan Show,
but Walt could be persuaded to eat saltines with milk and sugar.
Vacations were mostly to visit family in "York State"
but after Paul was killed,
vacation destinations expanded.
Washington, DC,
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel,
and Baltimore's fish market
were stops enroute to the traditional summer vacation spot,
the Islander Motel
on 42nd Street
in Ocean City, MD.

When Walt became a grandpa,
his name became "Pap"
and he took his grandsons
Paul and Luke
for rides in his truck.
We could hear that truck start up
from a quarter mile away.
"Pap's coming!"
"Wanna go for a ride around the horn?" he'd say
and the boys would hop in.
He'd let them steer
and laughed when they drove into the ditch.
They'd get a drink at the spring
and return dirtier than they left.
Always.

Walt always had a positive attitude
through many operations--
"Do you want to see where they rolled my guts out on the table?"
and as diabetes took his legs
and his vision
he would sit on the porch
and listen to the Pirate games
while chipmunks crawled onto his lap to eat peanuts.
He died young at eighty-five.
That was fifteen years ago.
Had he lived,
Walt would have been one hundred years old today.

We miss you, Pap.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Every year on MLK Day,
I  think of Chad, who is now twentysomething.
When he was in first grade,
I told my class,
"This month we celebrate the birthday of a man named Mr.  King.
He helped people to get along peacefully.
Many people loved him.
He is now dead,
but people all over America celebrate his birthday today."

Chad got a puzzled look and raised his hand.
"But Mrs. Shaffner,
Elvis's birthday is January eighth...."