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December 23, 2004
SAD, Syracuse, and cycling
When I moved to Hamilton, New York, in 1984 with my shiny new PhD, it was the first time in my 38 years that I'd ever lived out of the South (having been born in West Virginia and having lived during Vietnam in Alabama and South Carolina, near Army bases where the starter husband was stationed). My hometown was Lewisburg, WV, a mountain plateau town where the winters were cold enough that we could ice skate on the local ponds and where sledding was a community activity. I thought I knew what winter was.
I was wrong. In my first semester at Colgate, the president's wife took me out to lunch (it was a small college that had only recently gone coed, and she regarded personal contact with female faculty and with faculty wives as a personal responsibility) and gave me a lecture. Agnes Langdon was German, with the requisite accent and can-do outlook on life. And her lecture went something like this:
Some faculty come up here and complain, and they want to leave, and some of them do. For some it's because this is a small college in a small town. That we can't change. But for some it's because they hate the winter weather. That they can change. I believe nobody has to be unhappy because of the winter, if they're properly dressed and if they go out and meet it. If you're not cold, you're not unhappy. As for being properly dressed, you need a long down coat; high boots; a wool cap that comes down over your ears; a heavy scarf; heavy gloves; and two pairs of silk long underwear. Don't buy that cotton knit underwear; silk will keep you much warmer, and I can give you a catalogue where you can order some. Flannel sheets are nice, too, but not a necessity.
Already I'm in the twilight zone. We're lunching at Merrill House, the Colgate faculty club, with its dark paneling and high pretentions. And the wife of the college president is telling me what kind of underwear I should have. Still, I'm a schmuck when it comes to advice: if the advice is given directly to me from a highly reliable source, I listen and obey.
Agnes continues,
And you need to take up a winter sport. I recommend cross-country skiing. It's good for the heart. But you also might want to try ice skating or snowshoeing. Get out IN the weather! MEET the weather! Don't be afraid of it!
So, schmuck that I am, I followed her advice. I bought the down coat and the cross-country skis (though I drew the line at having the president's wife know what kind of underwear I wore), and I've stayed in upstate New York for 20 years (with a brief detour to Texas) and plan to retire here. I really love this place, all four seasons of it (though the year we had a 6-month winter was a bit much).
So I've got the skis and the snowshoes, and I've even got a mountain bike outfitted for winter. Getting out does a lot to counter SAD, even when the days are cloudy (which they usually are). And to Agnes Langdon's stock of fine Upstate lore I'll add one more item, for scholar-writers: find the sunniest place in your house and claim it as your study.
Posted by senioritis at December 23, 2004 06:54 AM