Cold Cold Cold is the title of a 1972 song by the American (Southern) band Little Feat. They were one of the great bands of their time, though always slightly cultish. Every year about this time, I remember this song. Usually on the first snappishly cold day of the year. For me, the song itself sounds cold.

Coldness in Poland is somewhat mythic. The Poles themselves take pride in thinking their country is frighteningly cold, and that they are exceptional rugged to live in such a place. But Poland is not Siberia. Most of Poland is a plain that stretches across Central Europe from central Germany until the edges of Belarus and Ukraine. It's cold -- especially if, like me, you come from California. But it aint that cold. Almost all of Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and much of Massachusetts and New York etc, are colder. There is no comparison to the coldest colds of Chicagoland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas. And so on. So smile when a Pole tells you have much grit it takes to live in Poland. 

Robert Gamble's funeral.  Dying in the time of coronavirus.