The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Sitting here looking at a blank page of the computer, I realize that I have no meanderings left in me this week.

When that happens, sometimes if I just start out, something clicks in me and there is something to write about. I thought about writing about the outrage of daylight savings time but although it is just around the corner, maybe I will save that for a column closer to the dastardly event itself.

Then there is wind chill factor. That is always a good topic for winter and sort of fits right in with Montana weather. It is close to fifty above zero as I write these words but last week at this time a Great Falls announcer announced that Cut Bank or Dutton or somewhere like that had fifty below if factoring in wind chill. So, in one day it has swung a hundred degrees!

Could that be true?

Of course, now you see, wind chill is measured when the winds hit your bare skin, bare being the operative word. Who goes out when it is really thirty below with bare skin showing?

My contention is that if early settlers would have had to put up with smart commentators announcing drastic wind chills they would never have stayed in this land if they had believed them at all.

Not only that but when the Native Americans met Columbus, they would have gotten on the boats and told Columbus to take them someplace where it is not fifty below in the winter.

Good thing all that did not happen for they could have just as well gone to the Virgin Islands and instead of being called Native Americans, they would have been called the Virgins. Not good for a Blackfoot or a Cree for that matter.

The morning that the announcer was giving his dire weather report, I noticed that when he got to Great Falls, he did not mention wind chill at all. Apparently there is only wind chill out here in the hinterlands but in the big city, no such courge!

That sounds like Great Falls, doesn’t it?