30 Years in a Housetruck

Page Thirty-Two: Fantasia - Winter Wonderland

Winter approached, and it began to get genuinely cold. The formerly "cold" overnight temperatures of 45° gave way to the thirties, and then the twenties. My senses were treated to new levels of stimulation, not just from the temperature, but as a result of the nightly frost. Growing up in Southern California, it was unusual to have temperatures anything near freezing. Here, every night brought a coating of glistening frost and hard ice covering puddles. I can remember feeling like I was in a Disney movie, maybe Fantasia. As my flashlight beam played off the frozen surfaces and reflected back to me like myriad twinkling stars covering everything, I could imagine the fairies ice skating across the water, leaving crystal patterns of frost and freezing in their wake.

My education in wood heat was fast and important, as the Housetruck still had not been completely insulated and sealed from all air leaks. I built a false wall at the rear of the truck to separate the van body doors from my living space and insulated it and the doors to keep the heat from escaping. Getting the remainder of the walls and ceiling insulated, and finishing the areas around the new windows became a priority.

The sleeping loft had a stout dowel rod from which hung a heavy blanket, closing it off from the rest of the truck interior. Most nights, the fire would go out, and I would depend on the electric blanket to make sleeping comfortable. In the morning, opening the loft curtain revealed a noticeable temperature difference between the loft and the rest of the truck. My mother helpfully sent me some long underwear and some ski gloves, all of which I put to immediate use.

Some time in early December, the event for which I had awaited all my life occurred. It snowed.

As a youth, I had seen snow only a couple of times, and only briefly. I have some home movies of me running around during a work party at my grandparent's desert cabin while snow flurries fall around everyone. Some time when I was about 13 or 14, my parents made a day trip to Palm Springs, where we rode a tram to a ski resort, and I was able to play around in some half-melted snow banks, getting very cold in the process.

It was actually snowing, big fluffy flakes, covering the frosty ground and beginning to accumulate. Now life really felt like a Disney movie. By the next morning, there was three inches or so, not a lot, but it felt like a wonderland. I tried using an old VW bug engine cover as a sled, but it didn't move so well over the snow.

Woodley suggested that we go for a hike in the snow to the top of the ridge. I didn't have any other waterproof boots, so I put on my old, heavy steel-toed work boots, the ones I had spray painted to improve the appearance, and put on a couple of pairs of socks for insulation.

The hike was fun, up the hillside, cutting through neighbor's properties and ending up at the back of Vern's junk yard before gaining the top of the ridge, where the view of the surrounding snow covered pastures was postcard pretty. The fir trees were majestic in their white flocking.

Back at the Schoolhouse, my feet had stayed dry in the boots, but felt kind of numb with the cold. A day later I was making an appointment with a foot doctor because both of my little toes were swollen up and purple and hurt like hell. His diagnosis was that the extra socks had cut off the circulation to my toes. Combined with the cold steel toes in the boots, this had given me a case of "chilblains", a mild form of frostbite. Minor, I say, but the doctor wanted to take some photos of my feet for a dissertation he was giving, explaining that mine was the worst case he had ever seen. Thanks.

I was put on a diet of niacin supplements to increase the circulation, and told to soak my feet regularly in warm water, and wait for nature to do the healing, which took several years to complete. To this day, my small toes are rather purple colored...