More blizzard stuff:
FROZEN FANNY
By Wilton Strickland
During the winter of 1973-74, when I was on a B-52H combat crew at Kincheloe
AFB, MI, another crew member and I attended a dinner party with our wives at
the Officers Club one evening while on nuclear alert. Because I was going
to be inside the club building for three or four hours, I had removed my
thermal underwear, and was wearing only my cotton undershorts, T-shirt,
nomex flight suit, and street shoes and socks. While traveling from the
alert facility to the club and back, I also wore a flight parka (waist
length) with a hood and gloves. As usual, we had additional cold weather
clothing on the aircraft we could don if we were suddenly called upon to fly
during this time. On this particular day, as on many days in the Michigan
Upper Peninsula, it had snowed hard all day.
Arriving back at the alert facility after the party, we got our crew-cab
truck stuck in deep snow near our parking space, and as we tried to free the
vehicle, one of the snow chains came off a rear wheel. Using snow shovels,
the driver and I worked for several minutes to remove snow from beneath the
vehicle and reinstall the chain. After we had finally parked the vehicle in
the appropriate space, we went inside the building, where a movie was
playing in the briefing room. I stepped inside the briefing room, stood and
watched the screen for a couple of minutes, then took a seat on the front
row to watch the rest of the movie. As I sat down, though, I suddenly felt
significant pain in the buttocks area - I had frozen my buttocks! While I
shoveled snow and reinstalled the chain, my thin flight suit and under
shorts were pulled tightly across my buttocks, which were elevated to the
full fury of the blizzard as I bent to the task. The skin on my buttocks
came off like sunburn, and the area itched slightly for years. So, you see,
I literally froze my fanny off for Uncle Sam, and no, I did not claim a
Purple Heart for it. Oh, by the way, I never stood around scratching the
itch, either - I quietly and simply endured it.
Wilton
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Thomas" <richthomas79td...@constructivity.net>
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] BLIZZARD!!!! AHHH!!
You write well.
I think the answer is that you get used to it and it just becomes normal.
--R
On 2/11/13 1:40 PM, WILTON wrote:
OK, all the talk of snow and ice reminded me; here's another Sondrestrom
tale:
TENDER AMERICAN & A TOUGH GREENLANDER
By Wilton Strickland
One evening at dinner in early December, 1978, while I was Director of
Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, a friend reminded me that
a popular movie was playing at the base theater. Because it was very cold
outside (chill factor about -85° F) we rushed to the theater hoping to get
in without standing in line outside, but we were too late; there was
already a line of about 25 people. Though I was wearing thermal underwear
and boots, regular pants and shirt, a down ski jacket with hood and
gloves, I was worried about getting frostbite on my uncovered face. (I
had gotten some frostbite in Michigan about 5 years earlier - I knew I had
to be careful.) While standing in line a few minutes before getting to
the ticket booth, I hunched down behind my friend trying to shield my face
from the wind. I also covered my face lightly with my hands and, for some
additional heat on my face, exhaled my warm breath into the space between
my hands and face. The line moved along reasonably well, and I soon got
inside and enjoyed the movie.
Before getting up the next morning, I could feel my forehead tingling and
itching, and when I looked into the mirror to shave, I saw a red, vertical
streak about ¾" wide down approximately the middle of my forehead - I had
frostbite again! As before, the skin on the frozen area came off, and the
area itched for years. 'Til just a few years ago, I could still see the
red streak on my forehead occasionally.
At Sunday lunch a few days after the theater incident, somebody mentioned
that some sled dog teams were down at the port, seven miles away.
(Tourists from Europe would occasionally fly in and charter native
Greenlander sled dog teams for two-week trips from Sondrestrom to a small
village on the coast or out onto the ice cap a few miles away.) After
lunch, a couple of friends rode down to the port with me to see the dog
teams.
When we arrived at the port, only one team was still there. The
driver/master was busy rounding up his dogs and hitching them to the sled.
(In Greenland, the 12 to 14 dogs forming a team are hitched to the sled
individually in a wide, fan pattern; in Canada and Alaska, the dogs are
hitched in pairs to form two straight, narrow rows in front of the sled to
facilitate passing between trees.) One-by-one, the driver attached a rope
to each dog's harness and placed the dog in position in front of the sled.
As he would turn away to another dog, those already in position would
watch the driver/master closely, and when the master was looking away from
them, they would hurriedly dig into certain cardboard boxes on the sled.
The driver caught them doing this two or three times and scolded them
harshly while kicking them back to their places in front of the sled.
During the few minutes the driver was getting the dogs in place, I stepped
outside my truck several times to take photos. The chill factor was still
about -85° F. Because I could not operate the camera wearing gloves,
though, I removed them, focused as much as possible from inside the truck,
then stepped outside, quickly refined the focus, took the shot and got
back in the heated truck in just a few seconds. Before I could finish the
photo each time, though, my fingers, nose, etc., were tingling and hurting
from the cold. I'm certain that, if I had been outside for a few more
seconds, I would have had frostbite on my fingers and nose. During the
entire time, however, the Greenlander was wearing nothing on his head,
face, ears and hands. What under garments he may have been wearing I don't
know, but his outer clothing was blue jeans, a plaid shirt and
boots/mukluks - no additional parka, etc.
He suddenly had all of his dogs in place, made one final and quick motion
to attach all of the tow ropes to the sled at a single point, and flopped
quickly down on the sled as the dogs took off. In a flash, they were down
the sloped shoreline and moving rapidly down the frozen fjord, the
driver's head, face, ears and hands still exposed to the extreme arctic
conditions.
The mystery to me in all of this: How could my exposed skin freeze so
quickly and the Greenlander's not under the same conditions at the same
time? Had the Greenlander's blood become so acclimated that it contained
some type of "anti-freeze" factor, allowing him to tolerate much lower
temperatures than I? I still don't know the answer to that question, but
my simple explanation, meanwhile, is that I was an extremely tender
American and that was one VERY TOUGH Greenlander.
Wilton
----- Original Message ----- From: "Curt Raymond" <curtlud...@yahoo.com>
To: "Diesel List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] BLIZZARD!!!! AHHH!!
Standing Randy, I was standing...
I'd just replaced the main gas line and had to have the seat off for
that. You don't sit in deep powder snow anyway, you stand and carve
steering by shifting your weight.
The seat is in my basement drying out, apparently the tarp over the
machine was leaking, the "padded seat" was full of water and frozen hard
as a rock!
-Curt
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 09:57:10 -0600
From: Randy Bennell <rbenn...@bennell.ca>
To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Subject: Re: [MBZ] BLIZZARD!!!! AHHH!!
Message-ID: <511914d6.1060...@bennell.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
I assume he is tough as nails too. Did you note that he has taken off
the padded seat on the sled and rides it sitting on the cold hard body
of the machine!
Randy
On 09/02/2013 8:15 PM, Dieselhead wrote:
Sir, You are a true connoisseur of old iron. Wankel panther, 240D,
IHC M, Snappers, Cub cadet, tons of colemans. You need a
Versatrailer. Got a 45-70 Springfield trapdoor?
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