Nasty winter? What nasty winter?

A 1996 photo of Resident Bill Clinnton tells the story of winter in our region. He is stepping off Air Force One on a February day at the Mason City (Iowa) Airport, wearing a jacket fit for fall weather.
The look on his face plainly says:
“WHOOOO!”
Winter defines us here in “MinneSNOWta.” It can snow 10 feet and the temperature can plummet to minus 50, and here we are, carrying on as usual while a half-inch of snow paralyzes Atlanta and the snowbirds play shuffleboard in Arizona.
I like the photo of my parents in the 1940s, dressed warm and smiling big on a snow-bound, frozen day in St. Paul. They were Minnesotans, through and through. 
My first job was mowing the grass and shoveling the snow at our house and the neighbor’s house. Think I was 9 or 10. 
The work was kind of mandated. You just did it. So there I was wearing wet mittens, a scarf wet with snot, and plastic boots, barely able to feel my fingers and toes, tossing shovelfuls of snow into the raging gale and wincing as they flew back into my face – which I also couldn’t feel.
Our kind neighbor, Ella Mae, paid me $4 per job for enduring savage winter in her yard. It was big money for a kid. And I earned every penny while slipping into hypothermia and losing my digits to frostbite. I exaggerate. But not by much.
The Season began again in earnest Monday night. It was 60 degrees in the early afternoon, and by evening it was in the teens or low 20s and the snow was a howling banshee, creating whiteout conditions on country roads deserted except for my little vehicle.
Back home in the wide-open country I had to push hard against the ferocious wind to shut my door and slam home the deadbolt lock. The wind almost won. And it kept trying its best to get inside with the cats and I.
I was worried about the car starting in the morning. But she varoomed right up, as she has for more than 167,000 miles in blast furnace summer heat and arctic winters.
I drove to work, like everyone else.
Of course we did. It’s Minnesota winter and we take it in stride.
Soon I’ll get the shovel out and toss the snow and wince as it flies back in my face, and I’ll spend 15 minutes trying to scrape the windshield, freezing my face off, hoping to get help from the defroster, which is running at full blast.
There will be 20-foot piles of snow separating the traffic in the city, and kids will make snowmen and snow forts and folks will crank up the snowblowers to free themselves and their neighbors.
All too soon the snow will start to melt and the ice will weaken during the wonderful, delicate balance between winter and spring.
For now, we trudge on. ‘Cause that’s what we do. It’s what we’ve done for centuries. Play in the snow, catch fish through four feet of lake ice, and criticize the Vikings.
Eat your heart out, Mr. Clinton.