Memorial Aud Cold

         “Are you cold?” It was a Saturday night, and we were walking out of the theater in Andalusia, Alabama at the Lurleen B. Wallace Community College after a performance of the Nutcracker Suite in early December. Snow had hit the South the day before – from Texas east to the Atlantic – Georgia had taken quite a hit. But the precipitation was predicted to be over during the early hours of Saturday morning, and black ice thawed by 10AM, so we proceeded with our plan to see Mike’s niece’s son in the Nutcracker, a five hour drive away. The ride along I-85 was a pleasant one – the sun had come out, the highway was dry – the only surprise was the amount of snow we saw on the sides of the road all the way to Montgomery. It wanted to stick around!

         The ballet was beautiful, and when it was over, Mike and I headed out to the parking lot. That’s when Mike asked if I was cold. The temperature was dipping, and I was starting to shiver.

         “Yes, I am cold…….but not Memorial Auditorium cold.” What I meant by that was I was beginning to shiver from the cold, but my teeth were not chattering. Chattering teeth is Memorial Aud cold.

         I don’t think Mike had ever heard me use that expression before, and I kind of surprised myself when it slipped out of my mouth at that point in time.

         In college, during basketball season, my best friend, Laura, and I would drive downtown together in her car to watch the Griffs play. Their home games were at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium – the same place that the Buffalo Braves played basketball and the Buffalo Sabres played hockey. We would park on the street somewhere – not about to pay for parking if we could find a free spot. Walking to the Aud from the car was usually a block or two – not too far. And early in the basketball season – November and maybe into December, we would have our winter coats with us, but we would leave them in the car and walk to the Aud without them. It was cold out, but not so cold that we couldn’t do without coats for a block or two.

         At that early part of the season, I couldn’t imagine it ever being cold enough to need our coats to walk from the car to the Aud and back again.

         Winter progressed. The temperatures dipped. We went to the home basketball games. And one night as we climbed back into the car after the Griffs played, I realized that I did not recall when we had started wearing our heavy coats to and from the Aud – it had just turned so cold that there was no need to think about it – we wore our winter coats. And in spite of our woolen wrappings – we were still cold.

         And I shivered, shivered to the point that my teeth chattered, loudly, all the way to the watering hole where we celebrated after each game. After a few weeks of this, Laura asked me to please stop chattering my teeth. I couldn’t. They made that noise of their own accord.

Actually, I could have stopped them if I tried hard enough – but I was just so dang cold! Nowadays, when my teeth get to chattering, which is not very often, living in Atlanta, I think of it as Memorial Aud cold.

         So when Mike asked that night in Andalusia if I was cold, I was beginning to shiver, but my teeth were not chattering, so I was not Memorial Aud cold – and I was just fine – not what a Buffalo-raised woman would call winter at all.

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