The semi-big chill

Last week, during a stretch when temperatures dipped to levels not seen outside of a Russian meat locker, I started thinking abut the first humanoid creatures to make that initial tentative trek out of Africa. Somewhere along the line, early humans decided to venture into cold climates, which means one of two things: They were either extremely skilled at fashioning warm clothing and shelter, or their evolving brains made them all insane.

I’ve got an excuse for putting up with the cold: I was born here. There are people who are wanderers, spending their lives moving from place to place, and then there are people like me, who identify themselves too strongly with a region to set up shop in a far away land – even if the price of loyalty is a set of fingers bluer than a choking Smurf.

Even so, my particular loyalty is due to an accident; I just happened to be born here through no choice of my own. If I had been born in Texas, I would likely have been loyal to Texas, although I would have wondered why so many people ride bucking bulls through arenas dotted with tobacco spit. As it happened, I’m loyal to New England – though I often curse the Puritans for picking a spot in which winters make icy mud virtually indistinguishable from moose poop.

Loyalty’s an anomaly, I guess. When we look at what we know about early humans and their migration patterns, we see a species deep in the grip of wanderlust. Travel, I understand completely; I’ve been to remote corners of the world, and know firsthand the value of experiencing a different culture, a different ecosystem, and a reverse rotation of flushing toilet water. But permanent settlement in a hostile environment? That’s like slamming your thumb in a car door for no reason at all.

Now obviously, humans would have settled in cold climates eventually. They would have had to. Thanks to a combination of medical advances and general horniness, populations have swelled and continue to do so. Setting up camp in northern Canada would have been a matter of necessity rather than choice, just due to space issues. But if technology had blossomed in this alternate version of human history, the crazy population boom would have happened only after the development of things like themostats, space heaters, and Snuggies. Communities could have spread out comfortably without worrying that an unsuccessful deer hunt would spell the end for their intrepid band of loincloth enthusiasts.

It’s strange to think of how we all arrived at our particular place in the world. Those of us in the northeastern United States can do a little digging and, in many cases, find that our roots are in Europe; many Mexicans can trace their ancestry back to Spain, Australians back to the British, and so on. But go back far enough into the muck of pre-history, and we start to lose the thread; with anthropological evidence as our guide, we have only vague notions about early humans’ need to push onto the next frontier. Where they got the tolerance for frigid climes is anyone’s guess. Maybe the first booger-icicled settlers enjoyed snowball fights and not feeling their hands.

Whatever their reasons, it has resulted in you and I being in this place and time, burning found objects to keep the cells in our eyes from crystallizing. It’s funny, really: The whole of human history has conspired to place me at my desk in front of a word processor, you at your laptop reading this blog, and Lindsay Lohan crawling from the wreckage of a car near a California telephone pole. In some sense, we’re leaves carried by a breeze.

And this icebox of a state is where it carried us. Every year, around this time, I get up, gear up, and grit my teeth as a wicked wind whips across my face – and every year, I bear it. Maybe it’s genetics, encoded into me by ancestors, that keeps me here, or maybe it’s just stubborn loyalty. Could be both. But I know I’ve got at least one thing in common with my forebears: A sense of relief come springtime.

The groundhog predicts and early one. Let's hope he's right.