Ron Petrie

HUMOR

'Windtoast factor' next logical step

Let us be more grateful in Saskatchewan for that which we have not. One fine example of a fortunate have-not is a windtoast factor.

Windchill we have. By combining wind speed with temperature, the government meteorologist calculates an exact body heat loss in watts per square metre, a generally useless, or "government-type," measurement. The TV meteorologist then relays the windchill factor to us in viewer-friendly terms: by the exact instant we will suffer a most horrible death if, heaven have mercy, we venture outdoors.

"Exposed flesh freezes in 11 seconds," says the TV meteorologist, no shame whatsoever. Whoa! His flesh? Did he test it himself? If so, which flesh segment did he expose? Do we viewers even want to know? Couldn't be that flesh segment, surely, or he wouldn't be grinning about the grim windchill factor. Look at him. It's 40 below zero for the 17th day in a row, and he's smirking. Maybe it was his smile that froze in 11 seconds.

Thank goodness eyelids are not categorized as flesh. Otherwise Saskatchewan would consist of one million people located exactly 11 seconds of walking distance from their workplaces, fumbling around the parking lot since December, still trying to insert their keys into the doors of the wrong cars. In practical application, there is only so much flesh that can be bundled up and protected against the windchill, after all.

Thank goodness also that it has never occurred to government meteorologists that they ought to invent the logical opposite of the windchill factor: the windtoast factor.

Or perhaps some scientists out there would care to explain why the constant winds of Saskatchewan amplify winter's Arctic cold, but not summer's tropical heat. If so, I would invite them to explain the contradiction in 1,000 words or less and then see if they can't get it published in somebody else's column. Because, speaking on behalf of everybody and his dog, especially if the dog rides with its head poked out the backseat window, we choose not to put ideas into the wind's head.

If exposed flesh toasted in 11 seconds, in the Prairie winds of summer, there would not be a Saskatchewan. Or at least there would have been none of the Canadian westward expansion that eventually resulted in the formation of the province. Our winds originate mainly from the west, and we know the earliest settlers travelled in the summer months (they might have set out in carts fashioned from sticks, with a sack of dry beans as their only food and a government promise as their only hope, but they weren't insane). Bucking a windtoast factor headlong, the earliest settlers would not have made it past the Lakehead before deciding to head back east and try another time, after the inventions of windshields and Coppertone.

Any historian you care to name, providing that his name is exactly the same as mine, will tell you that the Prairie winds actually encouraged westward expansion. Wagons travelled in convoys, and it was the duty of the head settler to scout land for suitable agricultural settlement. When a likely terrain came into view, the lead settler would turn back and shout to the rest:

"How's this?"

To which the followers would enthusiastically respond:

" !"

(Their pioneer voices would be carried away by the brisk Prairie winds, you see.)

"WHAT?" the scout would holler, "COME AGAIN? AH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ADVANCE THE WESTWARD EXPANSION UPWIND SO I CAN HEAR YOU."

" !" ("Yo!")

Driving their wagons ahead, the pioneers, likewise mightily impressed by the expanse of fertile grassland stretched out before them, would shout back:

"Cool!"

The scout: " ?"

The settlers: "Huh? Wha ...?"

And so on and so on. Settlement leapfrogged westward, continually pushing forward the frontier of human population, as it still does today.

Yes. Today. What, you think people leave Saskatchewan for Alberta strictly because of the money? Hardly. Mostly it's because of wind-impaired communication. The prevailing winds are also why those of us left behind in Saskatchewan have to suffer through hearing so much about them -- Alberta-this, Alberta-that, blah-blah-blah -- whereas they cup deaf ears toward us.

Not that it matters. Our beaches are less crowded without them. And with no windtoast factor, our summers are considerably more comfortable than those muggy heatwaves in parts of the country that rarely enjoy even a whiff of a pleasant breeze.

You don't hear us complaining.

I said: YOU DON'T HEAR US IN SASKATCHEWAN COMPLAINING ABOUT THE WIND, DO YOU?

Ah, never mind.

Ron Petrie's column appears each Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.