Who Stole Winter?

Ice: frozen water often found in drinks and formerly in winter / SeacoastNH.com EDITOR AT LARGE

Any New Englander knows that the best way to make it rain in the summer is to wash your car. We’re guessing the best way to kick-start the snow and ice is to simply ask out loud – where the hell is winter? Did somebody forget to tell Jack Frost that it’s January already? Or has Al Gore already launched the endless summer?

ICE ICE BABY

SEE ALSO Ice Fishing in Exeter

You don’t miss your water ‘til your well runs dry, but when is it appropriate to start missing ice? By the time you read this we could all be encased in the stuff, but at this writing – nada -- no snow worth mentioning, and no ice. For the first time in history, I did most of my holiday shopping by bicycle. Won’t be long, at this rate, before we’re tapping the maples and shopping for swimwear.

The weather lately has either been "unseasonably warm" or "freakishly warm", depending on whether your meteorologist is a Republican or a Democrat. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to truly enjoy the balmy winter weather. That’s because nothing gets a true Yankee more nervous than a season out of its cycle. Too much of a good thing can’t be good. By now, if you’re one of us, you are preparing for the most frigid January and February in recorded history. Stock the larder, hunker down, and we’ll see you in the spring.

Yankees don’t love winter. That is a common misconception. Nobody enjoys freezing his ass off. Some Yankees love winter sports, which can be a confusing corollary. Yankees want winter to be over. But in order for that to happen, we know that it first has to begin. Then we can endure it, make the best of a tough situation, and get on to what comes next. Enjoying winter sports, if you follow my logic, is simply a byproduct of our endurance. The more good you make of a bad thing, the more successful Yankee you are. When the bad thing doesn't show up as scheduled, panic sets in.

Which is why my thoughts have lately turned to ice. Without it, in bygone days, summer was unbearable. Making the best of things, Yankees cut great chunks of winter ice, stored them in sawdust and made them last all year. The Ice House Restaurant in New Castle sits near the fresh water pond where millionaire Frank Jones kept his ice stored for use at his Wentworth by the Sea hotel in summer.

ice at Nobel's Island, Portsmouth, NH by J. Dennis Robinson (c) SeacoastNH.com

I like ice if only because it allows me to walk on water now and then. I like the way it catches the light, redefines the scenery, changes from black to white.

I don’t ice skate and here’s why. As a kid I got a pair of double runners, two aluminum blades that attached to the bottom of my boots with a thick red strap. They never worked well. I fell often. Ice is hard. End of story.

I don’t ski because skiers go very fast and trees don’t move. End of story.

I don’t fish much in the summer, winter or fall. Therefore, fishing through a hole in a frozen river inside what looks like a portable toilet has even less appeal.

But when it isn’t on the highway or my back steps, I like ice, and I especially like going places to watch people do things on ice. I dress warm and I don’t stay long. Sometimes I don’t even get out of the car. But I enjoy the transformation of liquid to solid. Ice changes everything, turning rivers into roads and roads into death traps.

Everybody has their favorite ice place. I keep returning to three. Watching people play hockey just above the falls at Oyster River in Durham is surreal. The water continues to fall, but the players pay no attention. They are focused on the puck and the game.

I’m fond too of the natural little rink across from Fort McClary in Kittery. Most of the year it is just a bog by the side of the road, thick with water lilies, dark and skanky. Then suddenly kids are darting across the glimmering surface like dragon flies. I might have learned to skate here, if I’d had more guts and real skates.

Best of all are the ice houses on the Squamscott River. They won’t be there yet. If Al Gore is right, and summer is really taking over, they might not be there for long. In the heart of winter they make a colorful shantytown just below the prim and proper town of Exeter. Where the fisherman has tossed his bait, the shrimp lie frozen like insects in amber. The ice cracks and moans as small flows break out along the shore. Gulls hover by waiting for scraps. Here are Yankees tried and true – drinking beer, sitting alone, talking rarely, catching little. They don’t love winter, but they love making the best of a bad thing.