Frosty Fellowship in the Pandemic Age

I did something dumb yesterday, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Well, not that dumb, and all reasonable precautions were taken, but spending nine hours in an unheated garage in an Edmonton February was nothing I had planned on doing even a week ago. 

But last week I had read that St. Albert was extending permissions for residents of that city to use firepits on their driveways, and we were coming off almost two weeks of -20 C weather, and not having had in-person social contact with anyone outside the family since...November. The recent change in provincial guidelines now permitted outdoor social gatherings of up to ten people, although it had been too bitterly cold for most people to take advantage of it. Still, it was starting to feel like a fortunate confluence of events and conditions.

I asked the local lads, the ones I could count on for a get-together at least one or two times a month in the pre-pandemic days (and who I still saw online for D&D every other week), how they might feel about coming and hanging out in my unheated garage on Saturday afternoon, which was actually forecast to be above freezing.

And they felt pretty good about it - emphatically so, in fact.

So on Saturday morning, I moved the cars out onto the driveway, carried up the big space heater from the basement, and made a makeshift table out of a 4' x 4' gaming table and two trash cans. I used my convertible ladder and some 1x6s to improvise a sideboard and put some cups and a thermal carafe of hot buttered apple rum on it. Then I assembled an "Emergency Relief Station" out of a 5-gallon pail, some wood chips and plastic bags, and tacked a tarp up around it for a modicum of privacy. Lastly, I deployed a cooler with an assortment of beverages, piled 15-20 small bags of chips on the table, unpacked my comfiest camp chair and waited for my friends to arrive.

Within an hour, everyone was on-site all dressed for the weather, and tremendously grateful to see each other for the first time in a long time.

I'd had a number of games and diversions on standby if we needed them, but of course we didn't. We caught up on each other's lives a bit and discussed the fact that all but one of our group would be in the first have of scheduled vaccinations (fingers crossed!) which gives us hope for G&G XV this fall.

Look, I am as big a fan of online communication as the next fellow, and it beats no contact at all by a long, long chalk, but there is something different about being in person. The ebbs and flows of conversations are more natural, interruptions are less awkward, you can read expressions and body language better, and no one is distracted by another screen (well, unless they are checking a beer in on Untappd).

More importantly, you can still interact, even while physically distancing - suggesting the next beverage, filling someone's cup, tossing them a trick-or-treater-sized bag of Doritos, whatever - these tiny acknowledgements that you are sharing the same space. Who knew such a feeling would be taken for granted in such a way, or lamented in its absence?

We drank and laughed and snacked our way through the afternoon when Scott and Jeff had to go. Mike and Pete and I pulled our chairs a little closer to the propane firepit by the garage door (the space heater never seemed to accomplish that much), ordered some dinner and chatted some more. Audrey joined us for a bit as well, and that was lovely too.

Having friends that you can have heartfelt discussions with about everything from dealing with children to saying a final goodbye to a parent is a real godsend. It reminded me of when we moved into our house 15 years ago this month, and this crew and their brothers and friends unloaded 2.7 giant U-Hauls of our stuff in a single afternoon. Some spectator marvelled at the site, and said to Audrey, "To have such friends as these - such a blessing!" And she was right.

I was tired, a bit emotional and listing slightly to port when I said goodnight to my chums. I took down the tarp and table so that Audrey could bring the vehicles back in (God bless 'er), and carried the space heater back downstairs.

The next day the girls asked me how the get-together had gone, and I told them it was even better than I expected. I told them about some of the laughs, and confided that some of our moments and concerns had been a bit more maudlin, but how good it was to be able to share those times as well.

"You really have some awesome friends, Dad," Glory said. And I agreed.

After all, you wouldn't want to do something as dumb as sitting outside in temperatures barely above freezing, drinking and b.s.ing for nine hours with just anybody, would you?