Colder than Hell

   After Daddy left us in Minnesota to go “help out” his folks down in Missouri, things in Minnesota got rough. With no central heating, the castle got pretty nippy.

   The first storms came in October, roaring around the drafty old house like angry dragons, breathing ice instead of fire. We huddled under mounds of blankets and quilts at night. Mornings, Mother would warm our robes and slippers by the glass-fronted gas fire downstairs, then run them up to us. She’d shove them under the covers for us to put on, then count, “One, two, three, GO!”

  We’d hit the floor running, tear down the L-shaped flight of stairs and hit the front hallway – which wasn’t heated. The floor would sparkle with frost (sort of a “Dr. Zhivago” effect) and, as our warm slippers hit it, turn into an ice rink. We’d spread our arms wide and slide till we hit the swinging door that went into the kitchen.

   What fun!

   At first, we took the bus to school. Andrea – four years older than me – and I would walk down to the end of the long driveway in the semi-dark on those frigid Minnesota mornings and stand there, flapping our arms to stay warm, crying from the cold, the tears freezing on our cheeks. (Cindy hadn’t started first grade yet.)

   Once on the bus, being the new kids (which we remained for years) in a small-town ,we were teased relentlessly about our last name – Pigg – which we didn’t even know was funny till we got here. (It was a common name in Missouri, where Daddy grew up. There’s even a whole Pigg Family Cemetery there!)) We whined about riding the rickety bus with the local bullies – mostly (and ironically) the Wurm boys.

 It didn’t help that we’d adopted two runt piglets that Uncle Bill was going to kill, and hand-raised them that summer. We named them Red and Annabelle, after some friends of our parents, and the runts thought they were dogs. They slept on the back porch, ate out of a dog dish, and followed us everywhere.

   Even to the school bus stop that fall. Then they’d chase the bus! Short little legs pumping, squealing and running, curly tails spinning, till they ran out of steam. Pigs can’t run real far.

   “Hey, your sisters are chasing the bus again!” the boys would taunt. My face would burn. Andrea would glare at them. She gave at least one of them a bloody nose. It didn’t help.

   The other kids would oink as we got on the bus, or walked by them in the hall at school. Andrea punched out a few more of them. I cried.

    So, when the weather got warm enough for the roads to be passable by our old blue Studebaker, Mother drove us. She didn’t have a driver’s license (never bothered or even had a chance, really) but details like that never stopped her. Some of those rides were terrifying.

  One muddy spring day, we were headed home from school and Mother started sliding as she descended a little hill lined with saplings. The car swerved and spun and pitched and jumped and hit at least one tree. We flew around the back seat, grabbing each other, door handles, whatever was handy. But when we finally came to a stop, we were headed back the way we came.

   “Well, that was fun!” she said, laughing.

   She just pulled into a neighbor’s driveway, turned around and tackled it again. Slower this time.  When we got home, she surveyed the car.

   “Not a scratch,” she proclaimed. The next day, the school janitor asked her why her front bumper was off-center by about a foot.

Next:  Happy Holidays?