A friend of mine from the Northeast said, "It's really cold on your dam." I smiled and asked, no matter how cold it is, it can be colder than your northeast? The friend nodded solemnly and said, "If you look at the temperature, it is not as cold as the northeast." But our Northeast is pure cold, and you call it bone-chilling. As soon as you go out, the wind blows your face first, tearing your temperature almost to the ground, and the wind is wrapped in the cold and drills into the cracks of your bones, and no matter how thick your clothes are, you can't stop it. ”
I really wanted to tell him, what was this? When I was a kid, it was much colder than it is now.
More than 30 years ago, in the rural area of Bashang, the temperature was more than minus 30 degrees Celsius. The white-haired wind blows for nine days out of ten days, sometimes it is really snowflakes, and sometimes it is rolled up with floating snow that cannot be melted in winter. The snow, which looks soft and weak, freezes in the field for a few days, and when it blows, it is like a knife, and the knife cuts people.
At that time, the people in the village were in their homes every winter, except for the necessary feeding of sheep and cattle, and they did not step out of the threshold when they were idle. In order to save coal, there is only one stove in the house, even if the stove plays with life, it can only keep a little area not cold, fortunately there is a fire kang in the house, and the road is a fire wall, otherwise people really can't stay.
The back wall of the house was frozen, and the back room with the stove was frozen and melted, so people had to plaster plastic paper or smooth New Year's pictures on the wall to more or less protect the wall from drying. No one cares about the walls of the outhouse, if the ice is too thick, make a stove for half a day, knock it, it will fall down with a bang, and clean it out.
At that time, there were really no entertainment activities, and some people had TV, black and white, color, mostly old things replaced by relatives and friends in the city, and a total of two channels could be collected, and it would not be opened until the time period of the TV series. There is almost one radio in every household, and the signals are good and bad, and there are those who sing and talk about storytelling, and they can pass the time by listening to them.
Idle and bored, their eyes wandering, looking left and right in the room with little furniture, their eyes invariably fixed on the wine bottle. Anyway, I can't get out, I don't have any heavy work to do anyway, so drink it.
In the Zhuang family, drinking by themselves must be loose liquor. When people's thinking is still simple, good things are to be left to outsiders. What is good wine?
For wineries in the county, winter is the peak season. The sales store in front of the door is full of people lining up every day, opening in the morning and closing in the afternoon. The factory is small, and the output can't keep up. The door is also opened in the morning to facilitate the people in the surrounding villages to come to drink, purchase, take the village shuttle bus of the village, once a day, enter the city in the morning and return in the afternoon, and if you miss it, you will stay in the county seat. I was reluctant to stay in a hotel, and I was embarrassed to go to the house of relatives and friends. Some people say that there is no loose wine? You are so embarrassed to say it.
I heard the old man say that when they were young, who was willing to buy wine and drink every year? Wodong was a real Wodong, so he stared at home with big eyes, pondered two meals, and slept after eating.
With sake, the appetizers are ready to go. Half of the pickles pickled in autumn are used for sake. Some friends said that I can't write about wine and food without pickles, no way, too impressive, those jars and jars leaning against the corners of the wall, like piles, nailed my childhood memories.
There are also people who have a fried casserole on the stove and don't get off the stove for a day. There is stewed cabbage, tofu and dried beans inside, and occasionally there will be meat, if you want to eat and drink, lift the lid of the pot and hold a few chopsticks and drink two cups.
At that time, there were already young people in the village who went out to work, and those who were in the big cities far away had stopped working at this moment before returning to their hometowns, and those near the county seat. There are also those who are unwilling to stay idle at home, taking advantage of the good weather to try their luck in the county seat to see if they can pick up some flexible money and make some money, most of them return in vain. There are three or five young people who want to go out together in the name of looking for work, and nine times out of ten they will go to a small restaurant in the city to satisfy their gluttony and get over their addiction to alcohol.
In the past, many outsiders came to our place, always saying that the locals were too lazy and would rather stay at home in the winter than go out to find some money. After living for a while, they sighed: Your life is really hard. Grow one season of grain a year, the land is poor, and there is not much grain to be gouged out without stopping, and there is no grass slope for raising sheep and cattle, so the scale cannot be increased. It seems that there is really no way but to go out to work.
At the same time, they also saw that the locals lacked a bold personality and rushed to do business. For a long time, businesses such as delicatessen (mainly roast chicken), optical shops, dentistry, electrical appliances and hardware were almost all foreigners.
Everyone saw the success of others and gradually changed their Xi of life. They all went out the door in search of a winter sustenance. After decades, the population of the village is now small, and most of the people in the winter are elderly people with mobility problems, and young people are no longer idle in the winter as before, but are busy running around for life. Gone are the sights of Wodong.