SEATTLE FREEZE WARMS TACOMA

The Seattle Freeze in February isn’t about the weather.

It’s not about the weather in July or August, either.

If it’s not freezing weather, then what is it?

Attitude, a chilly attitude.

Rumor has it that you know if someone is from Seattle by the way they talk.

If you’re from Seattle, you don’t talk.

Someone asks for directions?

What time is it?

For worst of all, someone asks you out on a date?

And nothing?

Local lore says you need to speak the language to break through, but the local language is no talking.

If it sounds like the first rule of Fight Club where you don’t talk about Fight Club, do you need to fight your way into Seattle?

Probably.

Just what is the so-called Seattle Freeze?

It depends on whom you ask, but it goes something like this: When people move to Seattle, everyone is nice and friendly; they smile, they nod.

But will your new friends and neighbors ever invite you over? If you try inviting them to a potluck or a barbecue, will they come? Will your co-workers invite you to hang out on the weekend?

East Coast vs West Coast

There’s East Coast, West Coast, then Seattle, an Eastie city in the west.

Is identity based on location? Research, according to a twitter scroll, revealed evidence on the topic of east coast v west coast personality.

“East coast people won’t say a word for fifteen minutes while they shovel your car out of the snow.”

“If you stand alone at the top of the subway stairs with a stroller, an east coast person won’t say a word, they’ll just help by lifting the front and then walk away at the bottom.”

The subtext was “East Coast people are kind but not nice; West Coast people are nice but not kind.”

This writer broke the Philadelphia Freeze in the 70’s.

I was all alone in the big city, but not for long.

Someone invited the new guy to their place for the evening.

I didn’t go.

Got invited to other things and didn’t go.

I had my own frosty weather system.

Then I thawed out, found a local roommate, and his friends started showing up.

From there we started doing things, guy things.

We went deer hunting in Western Pa, a rock festival in Trenton NJ, caving in some range of mountains.

Am I an avid hunter, festival guy, or caver? No, but it was an enthusiastic group of do-ers and I wasn’t going to be the drag-ass.

(What’s a drag-ass? “It sounds fun, but you go without me,” is what a drag-ass says.)

Instead, I dragged along with them.

They were out-of-college guys, career guys, but not girlfriends on the way to wives sort of guys.

At least not yet.

I was the youngest of the group and watched and listened.

Would any of those guys ever get their status up to where they could ask a woman out on a date?

None of them seemed to have girlfriends and didn’t seem gay.

My guess was they had a secret life they kept quiet about when the came into Center City, which is what downtown Philadelphia is called.

Like ‘downtown’ isn’t good enough?

For city life they were as rough and tumble as any Philadelphia Flyer on the ice.

Maybe more. But I’m banking on the reverse when they were with their secret flame.

A Cold Cold Seattle Heart

Old Hank sang it like this:

A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?

He could be singing about Seattle.

From origins as a logging town like every other town in the Northwest carved out of a thick forest, to a supply chain hub for the Alaskan gold rush, The Seattle identity is ever changing.

From high flights with Boeing to high tech with Microsoft and Amazon, Seattle seems all abuzz.

It’s become one of the most known cities in the world:

Me to Paris: Have you heard of Portland?

Paris: No.

Me: Have you heard of Seattle?

Paris: Of course. We are not rubes here.

Me: Have you heard of the Seattle Freeze?

Paris: Oh, you think Seattle is colder than Paris? It’s not. Please stop talking to me. I need to concentrate on my baguette, my fromage, my foie gras, and not you.

Me in Belgium: Have you heard of Portland, Oregon?

Belgium: No.

Me: Have you heard of Seattle?

Belgium: I’ve been to Seattle.

Me: Did you get the Seattle Freeze?

Belgium: Look at me and ask again. With my chocolate, my beer, and my waffles I could chill any place in the world. Belgium is warm, until it’s not.

Me in London: Have you heard of Portland, Oregon?

London: Why yes, as a matter of fact. I enjoy watching Portland’s struggle to try and match the magnificence of Seattle.

Me: Have you heard of the Portland Freeze?

London: You mean the Seattle Freeze? It’s the same way we freeze anyone who doesn’t sound the way we’d like them to sound. You’ve got your BBC English, Cockney accent, Liverpool accents like the Beatles.

Me: Yes, my mistake. The Seattle Freeze.

London: Here’s the problem, dear boy. You in your Pacific Northwest hotly yearn for identity and you seek it in your early English explorers, when in fact you should be looking to your early Spanish explorers.

Me: It’s all about identity?

London: Of course, and who do you think cast shade on the rest of the world with our English Breakfast, our High Tea, our Boxing Day.

Me: Yeah, thanks for that. If you lived in the Seattle Freeze zone, what would you do?

London: As a woman I would dress with a hat and attend events related to the English culture. That’s all you colonials really need. Then, at your finest, you will meet some wastrel prince.

Me: And the rest is history?

London: Indeed it is.