So, I'm recording this podcast on January 27th, the year of our Lord, 2026, and I just got to tell you, I'm in West Central Florida, and it is so damn cold here, but it's warm here compared to other places. Let's talk about it. And how are you? I remember cold weather in the past.
I mean, it has been warm here in Florida for years, but in the winters. We have not had bad winters at all, but I remember some cold ones. I remember in 1977, I was taking the first Mrs. Gross to Washington, D.C., and we were going for Jimmy Carter's inauguration.
I had been invited to the inaugural ball. I had tickets to go to the inaugural ball, and we had, you know, VIP seating for the inauguration and all kinds of other stuff, and she had never seen snow before. So this is going to be exciting. Well, we walked out of our apartment in Clearwater, Florida on that January morning to head over to the airport.
And as we walked out of the apartment, there was snow on the ground. And in our car, it was covered with snow. You didn't have brushes to brush the snow off like I did when I was up north. So we got the snow off, I started the car, got a heater going, and, you know, all that good type of stuff.
And off we went to the airport. And as we were driving across the Courtney Campbell Causeway heading to Tampa International Airport, by the way, we have renamed that as the Glen Campbell Causeway. When I say we, I mean, me and my son, Zach, but anyway, going across there, it was snowing like crazy and there was snow on the ground on the side of the causeway, driving over there. It was cool.
And then we got on the plane and we headed up to Washington where it was really cold, but we layered. Now you see cold weather is about planning, not panic. I tend to panic, but it's about planning. My daughter told me this.
My daughter who now lives in Michigan, she said, dad, you just have to prepare. It's all, you know, you, you want to layer yourself, you want to put layers of clothing on. And I said, all right, well, what are you wearing right now? She said, I have long johns on and then I have my jeans on over that so I can go out in the backyard and deal with the kids and not have my legs freeze off, you know, not understand my grandkids just love the cold weather.
They love going out and snow. I did when I was young too. I just absolutely loved it. And my little sparkly granddaughter just loves it out there.
She's just having a ball. So you want to put layers all the way around. That's going to be the thing you want to protect your fingers, your hand and your feet. This is so very important when I lived in Michigan.
We had the coldest winner on record. I think it was 1962, which is why my father made the decision after getting us through that winter. He said, our happy asses are moving to Florida. I've done this enough.
I'm over it. We're moving to Florida. I just, I remember that. I remember on the cold winter, my mother said, you will wear two pairs of socks.
I said, okay, then my shoes and I had, you know, really kind of like boots, almost. And then the rubber boots over that to walk through the snow and the same up top, I would, I would wear a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and then over the sweatshirt, I wore a long sleeve flannel shirt. And over that was a jacket. I mean, you know, you had to do it in layers.
And as you got, I remember getting on the school bus and going to school and the school bus would be warm. I'd just take my jacket off. That's all. And then when I did the school bus got to the school, we went to a Catholic school up there.
St. Rose of Lima, Catholic school in Hastings, Michigan. But the bus took us to Hastings High School, which was two blocks away. So we'd have to bundle up to walk to St.
Rose of Lima and go to Mass and, you know, we had Mass every morning, but because we rode the bus, you know, from 11 miles away, Mass was always, you know, halfway through when we got there. So that was good. We didn't have to do all of Mass going up there, but it would, it would just be freezing. And I remember my mother giving me a scarf, this like wool scarf, you put over my face and she said, you're just going to need that.
And she was so right. You know, you just need to do that. Now, my dad was really smart about weatherproofing our house up north. He was very, very smart.
We had storm windows. So we had a second set of windows that we kept in the basement and we'd bring it up and he would put those on. So we had two sets of windows. Now, this is in the 1960s, early 1960s, by the way, late 50s, early 60s.
So now they've got all these fancy three-pane windows and all this. But back then, you had storm windows that you put up, which insulated. You had two glass things, you know, with air between it to help insulate it. And that was done that way.
He made sure that we had really good sweeps on our doors. That was something before winter came, he always checked the doors and make sure that the sweeps were not brittle and if not so, he would replace them. So he did that. That was very, very good.
I am so thankful to God that I have never had to do this because I grew up in Florida. And when I lived there, my dad did it. So very, very big on that. And so you want to do that.
Now, the important thing is you can, if you don't wear really good gloves in the winter time, you can get frostbite on your fingers. And there's two different stages of frostbite as I understand it. I had the early stage of frostbite on my fingers when I was out playing without gloves. I don't know.
I was an idiot. And I remember this woman, Gert Weaver, came over to our house and Gert knew about this sort of thing. And, you know, she got warm towels, she goes, put these small towels in the dryer and get them nice and hot. And then she would stick my hands into the warm towels and just start warming me up.
And my whole body was shaking because of my hands. And Gert Weaver took care of that for me. Plus her. I wonder what happened to her.
Her son was Larry Weaver. And then there was a daughter. It was a little bit younger than me named Becky Weaver. I have no idea what happened to any of those people.
But you know, you just do that, preparing your car for cold weather. Yeah, dad always made sure we had new batteries, had antifreeze, had emergency blankets in the car and also in his truck. So you know, he owned a bottle gas company and he worked out in the winter delivering bottle gas to trailer parks and other people. So he was out there in the winter working doing this and he just made sure that he was prepared for anything.
That way, don't underestimate winds and dampness because it's the dampness that gets you. I'm telling you, it is the dampness that gets you. So you need to be careful about that. You just absolutely need to be careful about that.
And I got to tell you, people in Georgia are suffering. People in North Florida, right now in North Florida, it's going to be in the 20s tonight. It already is, you know, where I have property in, you know, the Panhandle area, it is in the 20s. Can you even imagine that?
Ah, stay safe everybody. Have a cool day. Yes. Well, this is a daily grateful.
I forgot if I mentioned my name. I'm Michael Cross.