Bear's Den: "You sure don't wanna Freeze your Heart"

I remember that when I was a kid I was told – "don´t cross your eyes because they´ll freeze that way." Yep, and in the wintertime, I was told to "bundle up or you´ll freeze your tail off". And, while both of those warnings aren´t very pertinent to me nowadays, I do know that… man!… you sure don´t wanna freeze your heart.

Here in Northwest Michigan we´ve moved from a short midwinter thaw right back into a below zero clime with howling wind, snow and freezing temps. That´s a normal happening, but, after a warming trend, it takes of a tad of adjustment to again acclimate to the freezing cold. And, working outside, I´ve been dealing intimately with the word ´freeze´ as of late. Yessir, the word has stuck tightly in my feeble little brain. Now, even though I´m looking at the words that I´m typing, in blurred double, I know that most two-legged´s eyes will not freeze that way if they cross them. It´s just always been a warning that mothers give their kids. Sure, but the deal about freezing your tail off… well that one has some truth to it.

Livestock such as cows, sheep, etc. have tails and they live outside. The tails of these critters, like dogs and wild animals, are bone, covered by a mere modicum of skin and fur - no fat. If they´re exposed to intense cold, then the bones in these extremities can freeze and if they bump something, they´ll snap off… clean as a popped twig. Uh-huh, and hence, the true saying about them. Now, the other day, our 16 year-old was regaling us about her school day. She said that her Economics teacher was talking about what types of food could be frozen. The students named off several and he concluded with ´but you can´t freeze milk – right?´ Our daughter started to raise her hand but then self-conscious youth took hold and she stopped herself. She would´ve been the only one with her arm extended. But, she would´ve said yes, because we do it all of the time. I recently bought 10 jugs of whole milk that were on sale for $2 a gallon. That´s half of what it´s been going for, so, being a cheap Indian, I stockpiled. But Indians freezing food is nothing new.

In the olden days, the Creator taught Woodland Indians how to use wind, ice and low temperature to freeze whatever hunted meat they killed. Fish, taken through the ice with spears, was frozen, too. When it was thawed, it looked and tasted as good as if it were fresh. As a rule, Woodland Indians lived in bark-sheathed houses. These were called by different names by different Indian peoples, but we always referred to them as wigewas. In the village, smart families always built an extra one for a meat cache. It was always sheathed with white birch bark to deflect any sunlight. Yep, and that´s because although hunting was a hit and miss thing once winter set in, there was still some that went on. And, since freezing temperatures, blowing wind and snow were a constant, meat couldn´t be preserved easily outside in the normal way by smoking. It couldn´t be stored by burying because the ground was frozen and it would be found by wild animals. Yep, and since there was no TV weatherman, midwinter thaws were things that transpired overnight, before you knew it, bringing a warmth that could spoil food. Indians needed a protected place to store and keep any killed meat or caught fish. So, they packed the wigewa´s floor with snow and ice cut from a lake and hung the food from the overhead poles. Voila – the ice house or village freezer, eh. So, freezing can be a good thing, um-hmm... but not always.

Awhile back, I was headed south on the Expressway in the wee hours of blackness. Yep, and although it was cold outside, the cab of the Patrol Jeep was cozy warm and the pavement was clear and dry. I was headed in to patrol when I neared a gasoline tanker truck, clicking down the road ahead of me. Now, such an occurrence is not unusual on the highway, but the flashing light beneath it was. I pulled alongside, snapped on my dome light and pointed to the driver to pull over. He did, and I swung in behind him, turned on my flashers and made my way up. He already had his window down and said with a smile, "Well, I know I wasn´t speeding so did I lose a placard or what?" I answered, "No, no driver, this isn´t a traffic stop. But, you do have a chain dragging beneath your tanker and it´s sparking a lot. You may wanna fix that, eh."

In the glow from his overhead marker lights, I saw his face go pale and his expression change to one of moderate shock. He told me that he´d only been hauling gas tankers for a few months. But then, he looked at me as said, "Man, this job is okay most of the time, but stuff like this… it just freezes my heart!" He quickly popped the door and climbed down. I pointed the chain out to him and then got back on the road. One little well-placed spark on a gas truck can equate to a fast-cooked aorta, so I agreed with him, and there you go. You sure don´t wanna freeze your heart.

David Walks-As-Bear is a Kispoko Shawnee Indian. He works as a private game warden and detective and is an author and syndicated newspaper columnist living in Northwest Michigan. Contact him at The White Lake Beacon: 231-894-5356 or visit his website at: www.Walks-As-Bear.com