People took a hidden delight in telling me about the inevitability of winter. I was warned
about the incredible amounts of snow which would pile up around me and, if I wasn’t careful, would catch me unaware and bury me by February; my poor, hardened body suddenly appearing and thawing under a warm April sun. I was advised to attach flags to my car antenna and also to any family members and pets so that they could be spotted by oncoming traffic and low flying aircraft.

The one piece of advice that gave me the most concern was from an older, weathered gentleman sitting next to me at a local lunch counter. A half of toothpick moved in rhythm above his grey whiskers.

“The winters are long and lonely,” he said looking deep into my eyes, “and if one doesn’t take proper measures, cabin fever will find you and have you crazy by mid- February. ”

I took his words to heart. I had seen "The Shining" and I was convinced that if it could
happen to Jack Nicholson it could happen to me. I was also concerned about the term “frost heaves” I had heard in passing. I thought that these might be actual physical symptoms of cabin fever.

The first winter I was here started mildly. There was a small amount of snow and the
temperatures were moderate. The thought of cabin fever slipped from my mind.

One January morning, upon awakening from a bad dream where I was on the Long Island Expressway and someone had removed all the exits, I saw that a fresh fifteen inches of snow had fallen. I was, to say the least, surprised because the weathermen had predicted this. They also predicted a massive Canadian cold front that would settle in over New England. This too, amazingly, did happen. It stayed for three weeks. I was gripped with cabin fever faster than the crystallization of my nose hairs. I did have work to keep me busy, but that was only for so long. The introduction of cable television
into the town I lived in was still just a fantasy, so I spent Saturdays watching cartoons
and Hee Haw reruns from the lone fuzzy TV station I received from Maine. It amazed me
that someone actually risked his life to install an antenna on the roof for this. I played solitaire read books, called my friends and family in New York; no one was home. I studied the metric system and came up with some interesting recipes using peanut
butter and black bean dip.

Of course, it was my own reluctance to learn to ski or ice fish that compounded my problem. I began to feel alone in my seasonal solitude. I convinced myself that there must be others like me; people drawn from the hustle and bustle of the big city and its outlying areas escaping from the madness of the rat race, to live in the peaceful confines of New Hampshire, only to be gripped by cabin fever.

This led to my development of FATSO. I worked hard devising a charter and guidelines
for my group, some of which were:

• We would meet every Wednesday at a local grange or VFW or restaurant; unless there was a snowstorm, or someone’s car wouldn’t start, or someone’s pipes burst.
• We would discuss the reasons we moved to New Hampshire: Traffic jams, rude people, sales tax.
• Temperatures of southern states would be charted in Celsius so as to appear much colder than they really were.
• Anyone acquiring Brooklyn bagels or chopped chicken liver was to share with the
  group.

The list went on and on and even included a secret, gloved handshake. Writing the charter for FATSO kept me very busy. So busy, in fact, that I hardly noticed when the Canadian cold front was pushed from its stronghold by a refreshing blast of warm, southern air. The weatherman said it was a jet stream but I knew it was sent telepathically from Florida by nervous Granite Staters, vacationing for the winter, whose
pool side siestas were tainted with thoughts of busted pipes and flooded basements.

Spring eased it’s way in and my thoughts and papers on FATSO were filed away.

By the next winter I was married and the cold days and nights were easier to take. Trailblaz ers from the cable company even saw to it that I could watch Hee Haw on four different channels, and clear as a bell to boot. I forced myself to go out for walks every
morning and night, no matter how cold it was. I even took my dog with me. I also found out the real horror of “frost heaves” but that’s another story in itself.

Finding the FATSO charter the other day, I’ve decided to keep it. I’m hoping I’ll never need it. I am anticipating the time when I run into some poor, newly transplanted fool whose head I can fill with horror stories of cabin fever. Then instead of walking away,
leaving him to panic, I can produce the charter and perhaps give him a ray of hope.

Maybe not.