So, I’m working on my memoir. Help me out, will you? Was the winter of 2011 the longest in recent memory? Or the longest in the history of the planet?

Too close to call, I know. January alone was fantastically long. Somewhere around Christmas, someone must have dropped the calendar, shattering the first month of the new year into tiny, jagged fragments. Instead of 31 manageable days, January was broken into what felt like hundreds of bleak pieces. Many came with snow. Some came with bitter cold. Every single one of them was filled with darkness too deep to explore.

Maudlin? I don’t think so. The science bears me out. There’s the Sabattus woman, for instance, who conceived at the start of January, gave birth in the middle of the month, and by the time February came around, her kid was out of pre-school.

January was a mistake of time space, an epoch during which snow blowers ruled the planet. Future historians will study the period which by then will be known as Jumbo January. Students will regard the concept with skepticism.

“Sir, if winters were so long and so harsh, why did people choose to live in Maine?”

“We don’t know, Penelope. We just don’t know.”

A review of newspaper clippings reveals that I personally wrote 697 stories about the weather in January. More snow. Dangerous cold. Wacky ways in which insane locals sought to appease the gods of winter. They transformed tennis courts into ice rinks. They sacrificed their bodies by strapping boards onto their feet and jumping off mountains. In Bethel, where it’s January year-round, they assembled a 100-foot snow totem and prayed to it.

Rumors that extraterrestrials helped them build it are quite likely true.

The gods of winter demanded that every community have a legion of doomsayers, men and women who spent their days announcing the continuing wrath of winter.

“More snow coming tomorrow!” they would babble to anyone within earshot. “Twelve inches! Maybe more! Sleet likely by the morning commute!”

January just kept coming. Even the most chipper and optimistic began to show signs of desperation and freezer burn. With pink, frozen fingers, they would clutch a handful of your coat and implore you with crazy eyes.

“When? For the love of God, when will January end? I’ve given birth three times this month!”

There were winters with more snow. There were winters with deeper and longer stretches of cold. We didn’t even have new records to validate our suffering. The winter of 2011 was like a horrible party guest. It came early, annoyed everyone and then refused to go away.

When spring came, the snowbanks were still 3 feet high. A person still required three layers of clothing to step outside. Deranged weather forecasters were still there in front of giant maps, pointing to hideous blobs whirling toward Maine.

Weatherman: “Diane, we’re looking at another foot of snow by morning, when it will change over to sleet.”

Diane: “I guess we shouldn’t roll out our lawn chairs and beach blankets just yet. Har, har, har.”

Weatherman: “Shut up, Diane. Just shut up. I’ve never liked you.”

So, we were cranky. Who can blame us? We’d been forced to look at the same four walls and drive the same narrow streets over and over for five months of unrelenting winter. We had motorcycles and golf clubs and fishing poles blanketed with 3-inches of dust in our basements. Enough was enough, already.

Then April came. There was a day when the temperature shot up into the 60s and thought of rising even higher. We all went “ahhh, there it is!” and flung our winter coats back into closets.

The next day? Thirty-five degrees and windy. At night it was well below freezing. The snowbanks just wouldn’t die. You thought they were gone, but when you looked again, there they were, menacing you like the masked killer in an 80s movie.

Meanwhile, our friends and loved ones in other places are gloating about the weather where they are. Even as nearby as Massachusetts, the emergence of spring is much quicker and less fickle. The further south you go, the better things are.

“It’s 78 degrees!” trumpets your brother in Baltimore. “Mowed the lawn and now barbecuing on the deck! Beach tomorrow!”

“Shut up, brother. Just shut up. I’ve never liked you.”

Longest. Winter. Ever.

So when future readers get around to perusing my memoir, they will view this particular chapter with a degree of awe and disbelief. It will serve as a testament to our grit and our will to survive, but it will also leave nagging questions.

“Sir, if Mr. LaFlamme loathed winter so, why did he choose to stay in Maine the following year?”

“We don’t know, Penelope. We just don’t know.”