“The weather is cold.

The weather is hot.

But we’ll always have weather

Whether or not, so keep smiling.

This is the Meyer Broadcasting Company."

Every day when I was growing up, I heard that little jingle on the radio - KFYR, Bismarck. Weather was just something that happened. I don’t remember people complaining about it, as they always do in England. I doubt if most of the people in my town had ever had experience of any other sort of weather, so they had no comparisons to make.

From early November (I was born on November 8 in a blizzard) until late March (at least) the ground would be covered by several feet of snow. Every night the temperatures would go way below freezing, and often during the day it didn’t go above freezing. Cars had chains if they expected to drive in the snow - but there were ever-present snow plows - giving the drivers a head start for getting to work each day.

Our grade school (primary school to you) was only just two blocks away - so we would walk. Getting dressed involved wearing a cotton undershirt and underpants and then a blouse and woolen skirt and sweater on top. We had full length beige cotton stockings that were held up by garter belts. We would wear corduroy trousers under our skirts to school, but had to take them off before we went into the classroom. Girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers. Our coats were knee length with good thick lining and fur collars that were buttoned up under our chins. We would wear knit hats, and gloves, but also would have a scarf tied around our faces to keep our breath from freezing (and our running noses from producing frozen snot.) We wore overshoes - which aren’t like Wellies - as they were worn over our regular stout Buster Brown lace up shoes. 

After getting to school, we would walk a further two blocks to church each day, and we then walked home for lunch and back again. On weekends, we usually walked into town (eight blocks away) or at least to the library (six blocks).

As I said, it wasn’t a major topic of conversation. That was the way life was lived in Bismarck in the winter - where the coldest recorded temperature each winter was -40º - the same for Centigrade as Fahrenheit. The rivers froze over completely, and there was no risk involved in skating on them, up until April when the thaws started. If there ever was flooding, it was when the snow melted first and the still partially frozen rivers couldn’t accommodate all the water and overflowed. Dams and reservoirs have  been built all over the state since to minimise the problem.

From June 1^st to August 31^st we had the sort of  summer that is seldom experienced in England. It hardly ever rained, and if it did, it would pour down with golf-ball sized hail stones breaking windows in cars and houses. But you didn’t really didn’t have to think about whether it would rain or not when planning your day. It was 99% sure that it wouldn’t. The temperature seldom got below 70º F at night and usually went above 90º during the day. And sometime in the summer would be a several week patch when it was well over 100º. The farmers were continually worried about drought.

How did we cope? Well, we wore shorts and sleeveless tops. School was out by then. We found the shade when we could, and often spent time in our unfinished basement, which was at least 10º cooler than the rest of the house. Early in the morning, Mom would shut the curtains to keep out the sun, only opening them after about 7 in the evening when there was often a cool breeze. Trying to sleep in that heat was not easy. We didn’t have air conditioning (until my sister and I bought a window unit for our parents when we started earning money after college.) But we led normal lives - going out every day, having friends around, playing tennis. We always were sunburned at the beginning of the season, as there was no such thing as sun block. We were so pleased to be hot after our frozen very long winter, that a bit of burn was a small price to pay. One weather hazard for which we were often on alert - was tornados. Houses could be ripped in half, and roofs blown off. But although many of my relatives have experienced them first-hand, I never have.

The best times of the year were May and September  - when the weather was almost perfect. So when my English friends complain of the heat in the summer (or more often the lack of it), or the cold in the winter, I just smile and think, “You don’t know how lucky you are.”