I can honestly say that I've NEVER missed the Indiana winters. I grew up there. January '72, we had temporarily returned to Indy and it hit 20 below zero two days running. I thought I was going to die. So where did we move from there? FRIGGING FROZEN MICHIGAN for six years. Were we insane? After that we hightailed it for Florida like ducks with our tails on fire.
We left there when I was 9 years old, in 1963. I have no idea how cold the winters were, other that I believe that once it snowed, you could pretty much go to the park and sled the rest of the winter. If it were routinely below zero, I can't imaging being let outside to play much as a kid...that's deadly frostbite stuff. We moved to Virginia and my sled rotted from disuse, hanging on the garage wall. Our first Christmas here found me riding my bicycle in a t-shirt. Regarding Florida: You got your share of heat & humidity, right? Not to mention cockroaches the size of a Bugatti. I'm beginning to see the sanity of being a Snowbird.
No, that's a common fallacy. Our palmetto bugs (giant roaches) never get bigger than a Smart Car. It's the alligators that are the size of Bugattis. And that's only the small ones.
LOL!!!! My sister lived in Jacksonville for a while. I was a kid, but I still recall sitting down for a meal to the sound of the bugs in the window A/C unit. *PING!* *PING!* *PING!PING!* I guess there are no survivors to warn their friends. Of course, humans still take their toy poodles for a walk down by water's edge there (or as I call it, "trolling.") Who knew that alligators have an affinity for French food?
They're fond of Mexican and German food, too. There's many a chihuahua or miniature schnauzer on the menu (factoid of the day: when chow-chows were first imported to the US in 1900-ish, they were called "The Chinese Edible Dog" so i guess we can't rule out General Tso's Canine, either.)
As I said elsewhere, "Bad dog!" may be either an admonishment or a restaurant review...or an alligator's complaint.
We did. Generally, I'd stay on the sledding hill until my fingers and toes started hurting. Then there was the painful walk home, after which my frost nipped limbs would be placed in cold water, which was the common home remedy at the time. By the way, I considered breaking this thread into a couple of parts but I don't think we'd get a long discussion about 11-foot stilts, although winter weather might develop into something worth a thread of its own.
Perhaps it was that cold there and I just forgot. After all, I was all of 9 when we moved away. To put it back on topic: We middle-class had fun out there sledding, while those of means seemed stilted.