I learned a lesson many years ago that has stayed with me.

While attending some trade school courses in the city limits, I had to get to school with one transfer of buses. If you got out of school quickly, and caught the bus, the transfer wait time was about 45 minutes. I had always done that except for this one particularly cold night in winter (These things never seem to happen in nice weather.). At the transfer point, I stood in the cold for over an hour. My upper body was well insulated as were my hands, but I had regular pants on with no long johns underneath. The cold affected my upper legs and thighs more so than any other part of my legs. Even my feet which were in casual shoes did not get as cold as my upper legs.

I could not leave the bus stop to warm up at a gas station that was across the street from the bus stop as I would have missed any bus that did happen to come by. I am a big heavy set individual that looks like a stock villain in a lot of the movies, so thumbing a ride was not likely to produce results. Fortunately, I happened to see a friend of mine pull into the gas station to fill up his car and managed to hail him for a ride home.

My thighs felt cold and gave me sharp pains for about a month after that incident even though there was no apparent skin damage or peeling.

The next time I went to class, I had my GI style duffel bag with me that had snowpants, long johns, heavy socks, snowmobilers gloves, scarves, knit hat, and rubber rain boots that would fit over my regular shoes.

I got a lot of strange looks from others even when I explained the reasoning, but to this day, when the temperature is expected to be anywhere below 60 degrees F, that duffel bag is in my car or if the car is not running, it will be carried with me.

With my physical characteristics and in todays enviroment, I will probably have to open that bag a lot, but I am never, never going to allow myself to get that cold again.

Bountyhunter