“I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night; in the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light.” — Bob Dylan

The silence in the nighttime air hung heavy and low.

It was a deathly silence, like being in a tomb, I would imagine.

It was the coldest night I can remember in a long time.

It reminded me a great deal of some of the seemingly black and endless cold winter nights I remember as a kid growing up in the old, rusted, and frozen mining town.

The thermometer said it was colder than 15 degrees below zero.

The snow that had been soft enough to sift through my gloves a day or so ago was now hard and crunched when I walked on it, the sound diffusing outward, like ripples spreading after a stone is dropped into a quiet pond.

It didn’t take long to feel my cheeks tighten, and the cold air kind of stung going down when I took a deep breath.

I love experiencing and soaking in every season.

Suddenly, a tremendous single crack ripped through the quiet. It was one of the northern hardwoods in this stand splitting at a relatively high level up off the ground — another indication of just how cold it was.

Great-horned owls that had been hooting consistently for several nights were silent tonight. Other than the tree cracking, there was no sound beyond the beating of my own heart and the sounds of my breaths as I inhaled and exhaled.

The icy night air had penetrated the gloves that almost always keep me warm, with the cold now sinking in toward the bones of my fingers.

There were plenty of deer tracks out here, but the animals themselves had likely bedded down close to each other in some snowdrift or under the branches of some cedars or hemlocks.

Last night, it had been cold, too, and the sky was quite clear. I could see the planets beginning to line up in a row, an alignment expected to peak next month. The moon was up, but not bright enough to ruin the starry night sky.

Tonight was different.

Smokey-white clouds covered almost the entire sky, obscuring the stars. Where the moon was, there was an opening in the cloud cover that kept closing and reopening as the clouds flickered past.

I remember that, even in those horribly cold temperatures, we would play outside in the snow. Our parents let us outside, we just had to be sure to dress warm enough.

That would include heavy socks, thick boots, snowsuits, hats, scarves, and mittens on long strings pulled through the sleeves of our snowsuits so we wouldn’t lose them.

Our outdoor interests shifted as we got progressively older, from just walking around making and throwing snowballs, digging snow forts out of snow banks, and chewing and sucking on icicles to playing “king of the hill” and football and hockey on the snow-covered street in front of our house under the streetlight.

In still later years, we used to “bomb” cars with snowballs or “shack” cars by grabbing onto the back bumper and sliding on our feet behind the moving vehicles. The object was to stay on as long as we could.

Sometimes, when we’d have a half-dozen kids or more on the back of a single car, the driver would stop and get out and we’d scurry away like mice.

One night, a kid from across town shacked a car for a ride all the way back home.

We didn’t worry about being outside in the cold. We always wanted to be outside.

We also rode on plastic toboggans down steep hills and over jumps. We did the same with sleds on icy sidewalks and streets. We also would slide down hills on sidewalks just on our boots, trying to maintain our balance.

Thanks to those stunts, I ended up with my two front teeth broken twice and a goose egg on my forehead that I still have a bump from.

Even if it was extremely cold, we would stay outside, playing until we couldn’t bear to be out there anymore. We wanted to stay outside, and we wanted everyone else to stay out there, too.

When we finally did go in, we would put our “burning cold” hands under a faucet running lukewarm water until our hands warmed up enough to take a bath or to comfortably sit in front of one of the hot-air registers in the old house.

I think those kid days either thickened my blood or got me used to being outside in cold or wet weather. I am often not as cold as others when outside shoveling snow or just standing around.

My mom used to make us hot chocolate when we came in and often offered us cookies. In my teen years, I would spend a good amount of time in the winter helping my dad shovel our car out after what always seemed to be big snowfalls.

We parked on the sidewalk in the winter, and, when the city snowplow came by, it buried the car up to the tops of the windows on the doors or higher. The snow from the street the plow churned up was often consolidated, hard, and heavy.

It was those years and chores of various types that helped me develop what I realize today is a strong work ethic.

I also don’t mind shoveling or blowing snow or mowing grass or other outdoor tasks.

Even back then, I used to love how quiet it might be on a wintry night outside shoveling. If somebody else was out shoveling anywhere on our street, you could hear it clearly for at least a block.

I remember dogs didn’t seem to like being outside in the cold much. They often would bark to get back in the house soon after being let out. You could hear them barking from a long distance, too.

I don’t recall ever seeing a cat outside in the wintertime when I was a kid.