“Colder than Billy Hill”

My longtime administrative secretary at South Broadway had a collection of sayings and metaphors that were straight out of her homeland (Nebraska). Chris Vitt, who just retired after 26 years of serving in the trenches of “life behind the curtain” of church life, had a way of putting things into perspective. Currently it is minus 6 degrees at 5 in the afternoon on Saturday. As I look out into the dusk of frozen tundra, I can hear Chris’s voice saying “It is colder than Billy Hill”. I would ask “Just where is Billy Hill”? She would reply with exactly the same answer “I don’t know, you would have to ask my dad. All I know is that it is cold as hell there”. I would say, “I didn’t know hell was cold”. She would say “If it is hell it would be cold there… no flames for me. I haven’t been warm since September”.

I am getting ready to watch the Chiefs play the Dolphins in conditions that would replicate frozen torture. My fireplace has been running since I woke up and I haven’t gotten out of my jacket all day. I am remembering the 11 years we spent in the San Luis Valley. They call it the ‘Land of Cool Sunshine’. That is just short of a giant lie… in the winter of 1991-92 it never got above, Zero day or night, for 91 days in a row. The coldest it ever got at our house was -42. All this is to say, “I know cold and I did not used to be a cold wimp”. That is no longer the case.

I never understood the allure of being a “snow bird”; I am now ready to consider flying South. It is supposed to get above freezing in three days and my plan is to remain in the confines of my cave until then. I used to pride myself on not wimping out—now I am a proud ‘cold-weather-weenie’.

I Googled up Billy Hill. The first reference is that “He” was a notorious English gangster. Secondly, it is a line of clothing related to “Trailer Dwellers” AKA—you can fill in the blanks. There was no reference to a berg in Nebraska. I suspect that in the middle of some polar vortex Billy Hill, Nebraska, turned into a sparkling mist of snowflakes not cornflakes.

Onward and Upward,

Mark