Pull up a chair with a hot cup of coffee. This is a chilly Piece of the Past that leads me to a very interesting story about a kid from Erie. My experience with Arctic-type cold dates back to a January morning about 1962 or 63.
My dad had spent a good chunk of change on a real mercury thermometer. He proudly mounted it by the Kitchen window so you could stand at the sink and read it. “Now we can see how cold it really is!” He would say.
The coldest recorded temperature in Warren County history came at the close of the 19th century: 34 below zero. One fateful January morning, my sister stopped me before I got out the door to deliver Warren Times Observer papers. I had on a winter coat and a stocking cap. She told me to get more on! “It’s 40 degrees!” I growled. “40 BELOW”! She said. When I got back from the route, I noticed a strange pile of silver stuff by the door. Mercury freezes at minus forty! Dad’s mercury thermometer was shattered. The combination of pure cold and just a little breeze, the wind chill put the feels-like temperature below “the breaking point”!…