The Scandinavians have an expression, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” Supposedly, in Scandinavian languages, it rhymes. But rhyme, shmyme, all that matters is if it’s true – which it is.

And it was just this that Jane Mandeville and I were talking about in Aldi’s parking lot on a mild 18-below day.

“Cold?” said Janie, “I don’t care how cold it is. I’m outside, no matter what. And it doesn’t bother me ’cause I know how to dress for it.”

Then she added,“I learned how to dress for the cold at Paul Smith’s College.”

To which I might add, so did I…and thousands of others.

In my case, I like to be toasty-warm all the time, indoors and out, 24-7. And having driven unheated VW Beetles for decades, if I wasn’t bundled up well on my way to work, on any February day I would’ve turned into a Dopesicle somewhere on the Harrietstown hill.

Janie, on the other hand, was a PSC forester back in the 1970s’ Ice Age. Surviving in the cold for those folks was a serious thing. They had several-hour outdoor labs at least four days a week, and often they had to check their plots on the weekends as well. For all practical purposes, those hardcores lived in the woods.

Back then, there was only one approved way of staying warm — Sorels on the feet, and layers and layers of wool everywhere else. It was tried and true, and what was good enough for the Finnish army of 1940 was surely good enough for the PSC foresters of 1977.

When I said layers, that’s exactly what I meant. On bellow zero days, in addition to heavy wool pants, they wore various combinations of tops. It could be a couple of undershirts and a couple of wool shirts, with a wool jacket. Or maybe one undershirt, one wool shirt, a sweater and a jacket. Or maybe an undershirt, wool shirt and vest, two jack shirts and a windbreaker, and so on. And you can rest assured, no one was wearing baseball caps.

Cy Murphy told me that when he got drafted during the Korean War, they had cold weather survival classes. At one point in the training, Cy told an instructor that the conditions they were undergoing were hardly rigorous.

“Oh?” said the instructor. “I suppose you’ve seen worse?”

“Well,” said Cy, “I just spent two winters out in the woods, for hours every day, at 20 and 30 below.”

“Where the hell was that?” said the instructor.

Cy told him and explained the circumstances. When he got done, they made him an instructor.

The Patron Saint of PSC

When it comes to patron saints, there’s one for for just about everything. But did you know there’s one for foresters? Well, there is: In 1951, Pope Pius XII named St. Gualberto the patron saint of foresters and park rangers. But that’s for all foresters in general. If Paul Smith’s foresters had a patron saint it was Shirley Hosler.

For years, Shirley ran a town thrift shop. Actually, given her philanthropic pricing, it was less a thrift shop than a free store. Shirley was kind to everyone, but had a special warm spot in her heart (if you’ll pardon the pun) for the PSC stumpies. When good wool came in the store — jackets, shirts, pants, sweaters, hats — she put it away. Then when a PSC kid came in, she’d say, “You go to Smitties, don’t you? Well, look what I’ve got over there.” And she’d point out her secret PSC stash.

And how did she know a kid went to PSC? For the same reason everyone in town knew — their “uniform,” of course.

Nothing to sniff at

While those guys were scrupulous about their layering systems, they were less so about their hygiene. It was simple habit that when a teacher went in a classroom that had just emptied, the first thing they did was open all the windows and try to air out the joint. It wasn’t all that successful a maneuver, and certainly not a lasting one.

If you think I’m exaggerating even slightly, let me share this: My friend Ed Woodward, who taught dendrology there for decades, had in his first day handout the following: “Everyone is expected to adhere to an acceptable standard of civilized hygiene. Anyone violating this standard will be given a warning the first time, and will be suspended from class if there is a second time.”

Ed graduated from the Naval Academy in 1932, was a career man, and attained the wartime rank of Commodore. During World War II, he had command of nine destroyer escorts on picket duty in the Pacific and was rightfully proud of the fact he never lost a ship. Obviously, he knew how to command shiploads of men. That said, when it came to Paul Smith’s and his “civilized hygiene” dictum, he was powerless to enforce it. He was also too smart to try, because if he’d succeeded, he would’ve found himself without any students by the fourth class day.

PSC was an almost exclusively male enclave for years, with maybe 50 or so women out of 900 students, and all of them were in Hotel Management or Liberal Arts. But that changed in the ’70s when women started enrolling in the Forestry curriculum. And the more women who enrolled, the more the male stumpy P-U factor declined. By the late ’70s and early ’80s there were enough women on campus that the classrooms no longer smelled like a guys’ locker room. Mind you, it wasn’t as if Old Spice wafted through the air, but at least I no longer had to aerate my classrooms.

And speaking of the PSC women foresters: If you think they got preferential treatment or lighter duty in the labs, you’d better think again. They did exactly what the guys did, and a lot of them did it better. And, out of necessity, they dressed like the guys too — with one splendid exception that I think may have been unique to PSC.

When not out in the woods in winter, many of the women foresters favored a campus outfit. It consisted of Sorels, thick wool hat, big sweater, down vest, and then the crowning touch — a mid-calf Indian cotton skirt. And perhaps the reason it was mid-calf was so they could show off their long johns, which always completed the outfit.

Ah yes, those lady foresters of The Good Old Days. They were rugged, hard-working, fun to be around, and took crap from no man.

There was a graffiti I saw on a bunch of desks and that ‘d inevitably get repeated by some guy trying to get an easy laugh a the gals’ expense. It was, “Welcome to Paul Smith’s, where the men are men and the women are too.”

Whenever a kid told me that chestnut, I’d say, “Oh, is that right?”

He’d say it was.

And then I’d tell him what I’d heard several of the women stumpies say.

It was, “Welcome to Paul Smith’s, where the men are boys and the women are bored.”