8 September 2026
(1 January 2016) Happy New Year to all! In keeping with the spirit of the season, namely, Christmas and winter, I have another poem of mine, another memory from this time of year, not directly of Christmas, but of the cold experienced when we lived in the far north:
Forty Degrees Below Zero
After Christmas 1978 & into new year
mercury disappeared
from every thermometer
fleeing
into its tiny bulb
hiding
from intense cold
people then & there
huddled
around wood stoves endlessly
feeding
voracious hunger of feeble flames
doing little to warm houses
pipes burst
in spite of extra insulation
preparation for winter
we had to put
second heater inside pumphouse
in crawl space beneath
our house all
praying
Northern Lights’ flow of electricity
was not interrupted.
The wan winter sun shone daily
raising
temperature to minus twenty-five
if we were lucky
leaving
small security of our homes
dangerous
at best breath
freezing
exposed skin
freezing
breathe too deeply too fast
freeze
lungs & suffocate.
We all had engine heaters
electric plugs
dangling
from vehicles’ grills
ease cold weather engine starts
but even diesels with glow plugs
refused
to start–too cold to
ignite
fuel by compression diesel
jelled
no longer liquid engine
failed to start.
Dad even added
oil warmer to ‘67 Bronco
ensure
it would start
battery charger to warm
still lacked power
sufficient at minus forty
to start
my ‘59 Lark Dad’s alternate transportation
broke
distributor drive gear pin
oil so cold so thick
oil pump would not turn
only Dad’s Studebaker 1 ton
old reliable
‘58 Chrysler Hemi powerplant–
same motor in dragsters
same motor that broke
crankshaft & we
limped
home powered by 2 cylinders–
started
on the coldest morning
record minus forty-two.
Clyde B. Northrup 
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