Here's a cold weather memory. When I was an underclassman in Chicago (U of I, Navy Pier) taking a required P.E. course in gymnastics which I passed because of a written report on a gymnastics meet, in order to attend the meet, I walked from the Chicago Northwestern railroad station on a route I usually bussed, but it was nightfall and the busses weren't running often, so I walked. It was nine or ten below. I think the hike was maybe three miles. It wasn't a great neighborhood, but as I quickly realized, any troublesome people were huddled by stoves or heaters somewhere. As I marched along in the cold, I looked in a rather battered storefront and stopped. The vacant shop space had a few tables full of people seated in chairs, maybe from their chilly flats or off the street, most of them nearly or completely asleep, rocked over to the side or heads down on the tables, in what was for them a warming station. If there were any lights at all, they were really dim. Then I had to keep going to stay warm. I've never forgotten that tableau. Haunting it is. Folks hanging on. On my way to a gymnastics meet. I think I caught the bus to get back to the train. I was a skinny rangy kid, no good a gymnastics at all, so a good thing I went.
