Weathering winteritis

    Iowa?s blizzards and cold winter temperatures are not something many people look forward to. Local people have coped with winter in a variety of ways. Some like to play in the snow. Some curl up with a good book indoors, while others fly the coop to enjoy warm weather down south.

    Washington resident Diane Higgins is intimately familiar with winter, having lived in Alaska for several years. She is from southwest Iowa, but moved to Alaska when her husband was stationed on a military base there. The couple and their children moved back to Iowa in 1999 and have lived here ever since.

    Higgins said an Alaskan winter is very different from an Iowan winter, and in some surprising ways. 

    ?They get a lot of snow, but it isn?t as cold up there as it is down here,? she said. ?It?s more of a dry cold. It doesn?t penetrate like this out here does.?

    Higgins and her family lived just outside Anchorage, located in the south-central part of the state. She said the community there goes to great lengths to prevent ?cabin fever,? which is a feeling of restlessness from being confined to a small space for a long time.

    ?On post (the base), they have activities for the families,? she said. ?There?s lots to do in Anchorage. There are museums, planetarium, trails for skiing and sledding. That?s what we miss. There are no hills around here.?

    Higgins said that schools in Alaska teach children to ice skate. She said there was an ice rink on the playground where her children went to school. She said ice hockey and ice fishing are popular pastimes in that state. In fact, she said there was more to do over the winter in Alaska than there is in Iowa. 

?I notice that the girls get bored here,? she said. ?There is only so much reading they can do.?

    Roger Buckingham farms in the county, and said the winter is a time when he can relax. 

    ?I don?t have livestock to take care of,? he said. ?In the wintertime, there?s no field activity, so things slow down. I enjoy that.?

    The winter was not always a time for relaxation.

    ?When I was a kid, we had cattle and hogs,? he said. ?We did a lot of work over the winter dealing with watering issues and that sort of thing.? 

    Buckingham has a son in Arizona. He spent a week at his house over Christmas. Buckingham said it was nice to get out of the cold for awhile, but that he prefers Iowa?s climate.

    ?It was fun to be down there for a week,? he said. ?We went swimming on Christmas Day. But I do like my four seasons. Around here, the road crews are so good that you can have a pretty decent storm and within 12 hours everyone is zipping down the highway.?

    Buckingham said he?s using his downtime over the winter to renovate his house, finishing some of the hardwood floors. 

    ?The winter is the perfect time to do it, because you?re indoors anyway,? he said. ?It?s hard to get enthused about working inside when it?s nice out.?

    Mike Kulisky just recently retired, and likes to spend his free time in the winter in his shop.

    ?I go out there and piddle around,? he said. ?I do it just to get away from the house.?

    Kulisky doesn?t do many outdoor activities in the winter, but that was not always the case. 

     ?As kids, we used to go ice skating and sledding all the time. I got five brothers. We?d go down to a small creek and spend all day down there. We?d skate up the creek. We?d find a wide spot in the creek and we?d play hockey. We?d build a little bonfire someplace, and head home just before dark.?

    Kulisky said there weren?t any indoor basketball courts in his neighborhood in East Des Moines. That didn?t stop him from playing.

    ?We played basketball in the snow,? he said. ?We shoveled off a spot and played outside.?

    Kulisky bought his wife a Kindle, which is a hand-held computer that contains digital books. He said he and his wife have had fun with it when the weather has forced them to stay indoors. 

    Kulisky said he takes a few trips a year to the Florida Keys.

    ?I have a couple brothers who spend all winter there,? he said. ?We fish in the ocean. My brothers always say, ?Why don?t you move down here?? But I like Iowa.?

For the full story, see our Jan. 13 print edition.