Coldest Winter in 1000 Years?

You  know you're not in Kansas anymore when someone can utter such a comment...and back it up.

This nation's written history spans back over 5000 years.

It is pretty hard to imagine dates like that...since I can remember the massive bi-centennial celebration in 1976 of my home country!  Wow, I thought THAT was OLD!  ;)

As we live here, we bump into that weighty history often.

The traditions that guide the "common sense" go so far back, that 'new thinking" is measured by half centuries...to dates that pre-date occurrences that in my history seemed ancient...like the first Thanksgiving!  Now I have to chuckle about what ancient REALLY is.

There are so many cultural practices and firmly held beliefs about health, pregnancy, daily living that confront us daily.  To try to counter those practices with a "Western opinion" on such matters probably seems so foolish...like a 2 year old giving advice on the best practices of warding off the common cold...to an 90 year old! 

In our history class, we're studying the same time lines that I'm sure we did when I was a student a long, long time ago ;)!  But now I see those dates with new appreciation.  When we study ancient Egypt as we're making the mummy...we can jump over to this country and compare what was happening at the SAME TIME!

So yesterday, a colleague told us that "they" are predicting the "coldest winter in 1000 years."  Horrified at that thought...we again marvel at a history that can claim something like that for a weather pattern...and in light of the fact that the wind began to blow yesterday and it is now 20 degrees cooler...start bundling up!