One small way of getting back to nature

For the past few days I've had to scrape ice and snow off my car - and have been gleeful about it.

Such a chore may seem like an odd thing to make one happy. No one wants to stand in the cold, building up a sweat as chips and flakes fly back into the face. And often if snow is piled upon the windshield, it's piled around the fenders and tires, meaning you're going to step into a drift and get wet feet.

I don't concern myself with such unpleasantries, even look forward to them. Some of my colleagues tell me it's a subconscious desire to return north to my childhood home of Wisconsin, where winter starts and ends about a week earlier and any given day can be 10 degrees colder than Iowa City. But having lived for a couple of years in southern New Mexico, where T-shirt and shorts can be worn from Valentine's Day to Halloween, I safely can assert that all Midwest-ern winters pretty much are the same north of Interstate 80.

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In all truth, having to scrape ice and snow off the car makes me feel better about myself. Through the workday, I sit upon a cushy chair either in an air-conditioned or suitably heated office. At night, I've got more cable stations that can be surfed through in a half-hour, a lengthy sofa with extra padding and a fully stocked refrigerator. If I get bored, there are more than 3 billion Web sites to surf.

It's a comfortable life - a life that most of us lead.

And there's not really a reason for me to even park my car outside; I've got a garage.

So why fight prairie winds as gingerly straddling a drift to clear a stubborn layer of frost off a windshield?

As a Valentine's Day gift this week, should my wife set an appointment for me to see a psychologist?

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To truly appreciate the challenge of scraping snow off a windshield, people need to watch how their vehicles' glass changes with the seasons.

There's a pattern to it. In spring as the weather begins to warm, the windshield usually remains clear, offering an uninhibited view of dawn as the sun first reddens the horizon. By midsummer, though, as humidity soars, we have to wipe a layer of dew off the screen, sometimes even turn on the de-frost to evaporate it. The dry days of autumn leaves it clean again, but then slowly the dew returns and freezes, ebbing with Indian summer, but with each week growing thicker, until it becomes winter's full-fledged ice.

There's a rhythm to this, and a suggestion that despite our high tech thin-plate windows that keep us snugly warm when inside, we are not so far removed from the natural world on the outside.

And returning to that plane of existence, if only for a few minutes each day, isn't so bad.

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It's not so bad primarily because it offers challenge. And challenge is what drives humanity.

Anthropologists say Mother Nature nearly wiped out Homo sapiens some 70,000 years ago. As the great ice sheets covered Eur-ope, the Sahara expanded, reducing game and plants for our ancestors while isolating family groups. There may have only been about 10,000 or so humans left. That's about as many students as attend the University of Iowa during summer.

One day, a band of humans hemmed against the Red Sea decided to take matters in their own hands. With water levels low, they island hopped to greener lands on the Arabian Peninsula. From there, humanity spread along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and then inland along river channels, ultimately claiming Europe and North America as the glaciers retreated.

With each step taken, we challenged all Mother Nature threw at us: drought, monsoons, wild animals, floods, disease, poor soil. Today, at least in the modern West, we're barely bothered by the natural world.

But in all of that time, imprinted deep upon our genes, was a desire to face and overcome challenges, if only so we could be comfortable.

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This perhaps is why we still hold competitive sports. Why we turn presidential campaigns into horse races. Why some call for us to settle the moon and Mars, though space is the most in-hospitable and challenging of environments.

It's why a baby's first step is a milestone. Why the first word and graduation from high school is so meaningful, though both have been done millions of times.

The struggle itself is the thing. Should we fail to overcome hurdles because of a character flaw, it's tragic. Should some demonstrate foolish ways of mastering obstacles, it's comedy.

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Sometimes when I chisel ice off my windshield, one leg standing in snow up to the knee, somebody in his or her perfectly clean and warm SUV barrels out of a nearby garage and snickers while driving by.

But I don't complain about the ice or the snow or the cold. It's unseemly to do so, not Midwestern. After all, hearing someone from Atlanta whine about a half-inch of snow from a freak storm makes all of us think, "You ought to try living here, buddy!"

But we shouldn't boast about the weather, either. That would take the edge of our minor victory.

(originally published Feb. 8, 2004)