The Eastern Montana winters I remember as a kid, were very harsh. In Billings (Yellowstone County), the icy snow, on the city streets, would form solid packs, often simply ice. The resulting thickness would frequently remain for several weeks at a time. Many of the kids, including me and my sisters, got quite adept in hooking on, with just our hands, to a cars' bumper, to slide across town using our shoes as runners on these super slick surfaces. Our two arms served as our hitch. We would keep a death-grip on those old bumpers. A heavy slush would sometimes work as well. We would hide and wait for a car to stop at a light or a stop sign. Then, secretly, we would run out, latch on, and when the car started moving we would glide oh so fast. It was quite thrilling and was an easy way to cheaply get across town. If a driver saw you, they would usually slow down and try to discourage such nonsense. The temperatures were so cold and the winds so fierce that my lips would chap severely with painful splits arising especially midline to my mouth. This condition would persevere most of the winter and I didn't help things by constantly licking at the cracks with my tongue. The splits would bloody-up, harden, and my tongue simply would not stay away. I wish I had known then what I do now about the benefits offered by applying a little chap stick during times such as those were. Those Montana winters were so cold, that, if you didn't wear a facemask sometimes, your face would freeze in a hurry. Thirty to forty degrees below zero was not uncommon and we knew nothing, back then, about wind-chill factors. Whomever said that it could get too cold to snow never spent a winter in Eastern Montana. That statement is a lot of bunk! We usually, unless we were near a thermometer, never really knew how cold it was but we never needed a weatherman to tell us that it was really, really cold. It was DAMN COLD! In Billings, Frances and I, along with many of our companions, derived loads of excitement and pleasure challenging college kids with soft snowball attacks as they would drive by. They would get insanely incensed, slide their cars to a stop, and jump out, chasing us vigorously. We only used soft snow balls as we only wanted great fun not enemies for life in case we inadvertently damaged someone's car. As they would chase us, we would bait them to follow in a pre-determined pathway that would lead them directly past some of our associate friends that would spring into an ambush attack hitting them furiously with ICE BALLS! We would pre-craft snow forts stockpiling them with ice balls just for this purpose. We were such little devils! But, we thought it was great fun. I'm not so sure the college kids thought the same as they were no match for our deviancies. Sitting Bull would have been proud! We never worked the same area long enough to have to worry about any kind of organized counter attack. Strictly guerrilla-type tactics. In Carbon County, where we later lived on Pryor Star Route, the area was totally isolated and such antics were not possible. Besides, we grew to know most everybody around making it so that misbehavior, such as this, simply would not fly in that location. We did horse around, on the school bus, though, trying to get some dumb kid to put their tongue against the inside of the frozen school bus window. That was always a good laugher, although a little nasty. When you tried this you had to stand close by to prevent the kid from jerking back before you could teach him the consequences. This fact made this particular prank risky and a tad-bit nasty. Hey, we were kids! Waiting for the school bus, while a blizzardy storm was in progress was sheer misery. My sisters and I would take turns heading up the line as we waited for the first sign that proved the school bus was coming down the hill from Pryor. This way, only one of us, at a time, had to face the total brunt of the storm at one time. The blinding snow was so wicked that it would cover you up quickly and had a cold bite that would chill you to the bone in a heartbeat. But the bus somehow always managed to come, darn it anyhow. (Billy Bowman was usually the driver.) Often, in sitting by a window, I would spot a flock of wild Canadian Geese, maybe some pheasants or a covey of Hungarian Partridge, a bobcat, or a coyote. Oh how, on times like this did I dread being stuck on a crappy old school bus when I would rather be out in the field with my gun and my trusty hound. Where were all these critters yesterday, when I was out hunting? There was a place in the wheat fields that would well up into a small pond in the winter. During the previous fall, we made a hasty, but weather-efficient lean-to shelter across a small gully dip leading to this depression area. We laid straw in the gully portion. When winter came, the pond area would freeze over and we were able to go there, with our schoolmates and ice skate. When we needed a rest, we would settle down in the warmth that our multitude of bodies would be generated within the straw pile. Sometimes a few pleasures can be coaxed out of winter weather............However, for our Dad this weather was especially tough. Dad was employed, at this time, selling Encyclopedia Britannica. This put him out on difficult Montana Highways a lot. The bitter winter weather challenges were hard, but wintertime in the prairie was a lucrative season for him, as a book salesman. Harvest-time is over and many families, especially those that enjoyed successful crops or stock sales often had enough of a surplus, in the bank, to be interested in seriously considering buying a set of Britannica. With winter came days and nights where being stuck at home might seem a little more pleasurable with the world of knowledge within easy grasp. When Dad did make it home, after a long, arduous trip, he had his share of stories to tell about highway tribulations. One time, when he was trying to get to Miles City from Billings, his gasoline line froze up, causing his car to shudder and shake; stalling even though he was pushing it full steam ahead! He said he had a heck of a time on that round and was relegated to having to vigorously thaw the line out by rubbing it with his bare hands-no easy trick stuck out in the fierce bitter wind on a freezing roadway in sub-zero temperatures. Just how miserable is that? Two-thirds of the way through that same winter, at the house on Pryor Star Route, our coal furnace grates burnt out. The coal wouldn't hold a flame now as, because of the broken grates, air couldn't get under the coal. Being 40 degrees below zero outside made things awfully cold inside as well. The inside temperature wasn't a whole lot different than that outside, except that we were lucky that the walls of the house protected us from the ferocity of the menacing winds. We had to wear our winter coats in the house as well as outside. I ended up, at 12 years old, chopping up the corral for fuel, so that none of us would freeze to death. (Dad was still on the road and there was no way to contact him.) Our closest neighbor was five miles away. We blanketed up the open entrance ways of a corner room, in a heat trapping maneuver, that also had a small fireplace and my mother and sisters huddled-up there to keep warm during the day. (Me too, when I wasn't out chopping wood.) At night, we banked the fire and went upstairs to bed. We used so many covers, the blankets were so heavy that you could hardly change positions. You could readily see your own breath--in the house! Man, but it was cold. But, I loved to hunt so much, I would try something new just about every day that I was off from school and had my chores done. I loved to track wild game after a fresh snow and to look for dark spots far out into the prairie that might give away something trying to hide. Everything had to eat, including us, so there was always something to find. Sometimes, I would crawl through the snowdrifts in an attempt to sneak up, within range, of a huge flock of wild pigeons that adopted a remote grain elevator, not extremely far from our house, as home. Dad first showed me where these pigeons liked to hang out. He had such a good knowledge of pigeons. This particular band would try to mix with his racing homers so he was kind of keen for me to keep them freaked out a little and flighty. These wild birds were solely grain-fed, large-breasted, lean and delicious to eat. And loads of fun to hunt! Montana winters also made it hard on the animals. For us, we didn't have a lot but I had hogs and rabbits through the winter; chickens, and other fowl as well; and Dad's homers, of course. I had to haul water every morning. My hands would freeze so painfully that only cold water would thaw them to a tolerable degree. Every morning I would try to get my hands thawed before the school bus arrived. I don't have any feeling in my fingertips nor do I have much manual dexterity in my fingertips due to the neuropathies that resulted from these very events of the far past. I can't even use a bow and arrow as my fingertips no longer can sustain that kind of a grip. And, as for the rabbits--well, sometimes I would go out , in the morning, and find an entire litter, or more, frozen solid. All I could do was to throw anything frozen out to the feral cats. I could probably go on and on, some more, with various winter happenings, etc. but I'm sure you get the gist. On my hunting adventures, I mostly went alone, except for my faithful sidekick, Ivy, (a massively-built beagle hound). Dad would join me oftentimes if he was home. Dad was a lot of fun to be with and he always had a good idea, or two, to help beat the weather. I learned a lot from my Dad. Mom was an exceptional cook and would prepare anything I brought home as long as I dressed and cleaned it first. The Montana winters were very hard on my mother, especially when she was left alone so much with just us kids. She worried a lot about our safety and she worried a lot about my Dad away on the road. My Dad was a clever entrepreneur and it took but two rugged Montana winters to wake him up to the fact that he could make just as good of a living in a more temperate climate. It wasn't too much longer and we found ourselves living in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm sure my Mother had a major influence in this new change of circumstances as well. I acutely miss Montana, but I don't think anyone really misses some of those similar moments in the bitter cold.