Look Who's Looking...

I’m all for overturning the Patriot Act. Weighing the potential useful information Big Brother might get from eavesdropping on Joe Schmoe’s phone calls to Aunt Rhoda or LuLu Librarian’s Internet dating progress, against Americans’ rights to speak, write, worship, talk, correspond, and assemble, & gripe freely & unmonitored, I’ll take freedom. I heard that’s what America is supposed to be all about—freedom—although I’m not naïve enough to believe this is as true in practice as it might be in principle.

But this IS true: People DIE on the prairie in weather like we’re having today, and Big Brother can sometimes be the only savior.

Yesterday, it was in the upper 30’s and Ray, Mom and I fought city traffic in search of last-minute holiday bargains. Today, the wind chill is -20, and a steady haze of snows blows in from the corn field to the west, on a north wind that could peel away your skin in no time. The peacocks are huddled in the loafing shed rafters, as close as they can get to the brooder lamp without setting feathers aflame. There is no figuring the sudden shift, short of the plains waking up in a seriously foul mood.

Our nature here is to slip into that same bad temper and complain about the weather, and I do. But I also appreciate the raw power of the north wind to strip the linden pods in a shower of thready black, and the willingness of barn cats to tolerate my presence if it means Wal-Mart cat food on a makeshift ledge, out of the icy blast.

I’m not sure folks from more temperate climates really get the gravity of inside/outside. Days like this can make going outside, even a simple trip to town for groceries, unbearable. And if you get to town, the truck with all that glorious California (or Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.) produce may have stalled out near Kadoka, or Bessie may have frozen to a fencepost overnight. So most of us stay inside, happy enough with a hearty “freezer stew” and powdered milk.

I remember a couple winters ago, a woman traveling alone on South Dakota highways got caught in a blizzard. She was missing for 2 or 3 days, her car buried somewhere in a drift. They finally found her, alive, by homing in on her cell phone. So when Jack Blizzard unleashes his shenanigans in the Heartland, I try to curb my railing against Big Brother’s constant nosing into my business, because given a choice between BB’s buttinsky meddling, and having someone find a Marlene-sicle on a gravel road near Irene, I’m glad to be trackable.

So if you have to venture out and Jack’s afoot, remember to wear clean underwear in case you high-center on a snowbank in the hinderland. But pay a little attention, too, to your hair & makeup—you’ll wanna look your best in the satellite video, which will most likely be on YouTube by midweek, doctored to look like you’re lip-syncing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”