Cold, cold, cold? Been there, done that and survived

"Baby it's cold outside ..."

I have been cold before, even though I have never lived anywhere that far north. In the places I lived, it was a really big deal when the temperature got down into single digits.

Of course, when I moved to Southern California in 1990, I pretty much gave up on the idea of winter. I can remember only once or twice in the 20 years I lived there that the temperature even got down to freezing. I did encounter some cold weather the times we went to Virginia for Christmas, but that was it.

The three times in my life I was coldest were all in the second half of the 1980s -- in Missouri, South Dakota and Idaho. In each of them, the wind-chill factor made it down to 50 degrees below zero. So when I read that in the next few days, wind-chill in the Midwest  might get down to 70 below, I at least have some idea of what that means.

The first time, and the coldest of the three, was when I was working in St. Louis in 1985. It was late January, and I was covering University of Missouri basketball out in Columbia, 120 miles away.

The temperature was 18 below zero, but strong north winds took it down to 55 below zero. My car was on its last legs and the heater was mediocre, but the worst part was having to walk from the parking lot to the Hearnes Center. It was so cold it hurt to breathe. Indeed, even when I returned home and parked right in front of my building, the 25 feet or so between the car and the door left the inside of my nose frozen.

The other two times weren't quite as bad. Just after Christmas 1987, when I was working in Colorado, I went to Sioux Falls, S.D., to cover a basketball tournament. The first three nights, when my employer was paying, I stayed in a nice hotel and was perfectly comfortable. But when the tournament ended, I was going to drive 1,300 miles to Virginia to spend two weeks vacation at home.

Since I was paying for the hotel myself, I switched to a Motel 6. They left the light on for me, but my room was on the end of the building. That night, the wind-chill factor dropped to 50 below and no matter how many blankets I put on the bed and no matter how high I turned the thermostat, it was tough to get warm.

I was so eager to get out of the frozen north that I drove 750 miles the next day and made it as far as Indianapolis. The whole trip was sort of cursed in a way. My return home to Colorado two weeks later had be driving right into the teeth of a massive snowstorm. I was the last car let through at Burlington before the state police closed the highway all the way to Denver.

ISU's Holt Arena

The third time was the strangest. It was February 1990 and I was working in Reno, covering University of Nevada basketball. The Wolfpack was playing at Idaho State in Pocatello, and once again the wind-chill was at 50 below.

ISU played in a combination football-basketball indoor arena, and with it 50 below outside it was impossible to heat adequately. With everything turned up full blast, the temperature indoors was 49 degrees. Both teams wore T-shirts and sweatpants under their uniforms.

So yes, I've been cold. But living in California and then in Georgia, I'm not exactly walking in a winter wonderland. The first winter we were here, it snowed once. The next two winters, the temperature rarely got down to freezing.

Indiana wants me ...

This winter we've already seen lows in the 20s, and when I look at the forecast on my iPhone, they're predicting a low of 9 degrees on Tuesday.

That's not so bad compared to the Midwest. Those numbers in the photo are pretty impressive, even if they're nowhere near the 70 below expected in the upper Midwest.

I'm figuring as long as the numbers stay on the warm side of zero, maybe I'll play golf.