By Patrick Kampert and William Hageman, Tribune staff reporters
They walk among us. Somehow.
While we’re bundled in parkas, fur hats, scarves, mittens and snow boots, they’re traipsing about in short-sleeved shirts, pajama bottoms, shorts or flip-flops.
Temperatures may fall and the wind may howl, yet these cold warriors march, thumbing their shiny red noses at winter.
Are they nuts?
We tracked some down and discovered the reasons for their rebellion.
Life’s a beach
Why aren’t Mark Kienzynski’s toes blue? The physics and geology teacher at Lyons Township High School doesn’t go anywhere without his sandals.
A while back, he came down with a bad case of eczema on his foot. He couldn’t wear socks because they just made things worse. So he started wearing sandals. Not only did the eczema clear up, but he also found that he liked the footwear.
“I’ve been wearing them pretty much now year-round for eight, nine years,” he said.
There was, of course, that wedding Kienzynski attended not too long ago, when he wore some wingtips. But otherwise, rain, snow, sleet . . . it’s sandals.
“Sometimes I’ll put wool socks on if I’m going to be out a long time. . . . And if I’m going out for my mail, I’ll go barefoot.”
A contract’s a contract
“There’s nothing like walking to school like this,” said Eric Sugimoto, who appeared perfectly normal except for the fact that he was wearing denim shorts in the subzero wind chill.
Shorts are a daily wardrobe choice for the Oak Park-River Forest High School senior. He said that back in November, he and a friend made a pact.
“We decided we weren’t wearing pants.”
True to their pledge, they have stuck with shorts all winter, even during the early February arctic blast.
“I was cold, but it wasn’t that bad,” said Sugimoto, who says he walks four or five blocks to school.
We asked if he got grief at home.
“All the time. My mom thinks I’m going to die out here.”
Don’t need no stinkin’ pants
He owns 12 pairs of shorts. But when Brian Birkholz got his current job, he was required to wear long pants after Labor Day. He wasn’t working on this frigid February day, though, and two-thirds of his pants wardrobe was in the laundry. It made for an easy choice–8-year-old torn skateboarding shorts that used to belong to his brother–for the 18-year-old Elgin Community College student.
“I’ve been wearing shorts all year round since 8th grade,” he said. “It grew out of a bet with a friend of mine that I couldn’t wear shorts for the whole school year.”
He won and picked up $20.
“But after that, I couldn’t quit.”
Darwin’s hazy shade of winter
Eric Enberg, 18, of Elgin was carrying a frozen Stouffer’s lunch into Elgin Community College–which was colder than he said he was without a coat.
“I only bring my coat with if it’s minus 5 or minus 10,” he said, admitting that, even then, he sometimes leaves it in his car. “My parents like to yell at me about it.”
On this day, he sported a black T-shirt touting the veteran metal band Megadeth. He usually wears “half band T-shirts and half Rollerblader T-shirts,” to go along with the colorful wristbands he collects once a week when he and his buddies go to an indoor skate park in Tinley Park. While he had some black-and-blue marks on his arms from his hobby, he wasn’t concerned about the cold turning the rest of his skin blue.
“I try to get my body used to the cold. I think you adapt to it.”
He noted that he usually has one cold or one bout with the flu per year, while friends who bundle up are sick more often.
Dressing down
When Justin Dobner arrived at West Aurora High School, his jacket was open, and instead of pants he was sporting some spiffy red moose-print pajama bottoms. For now.
“I’ll be taking them off in a couple of minutes,” he said as he arrived at school. “The classrooms are really warm.”
(Fear not, he had shorts on underneath.)
Dobner said the cold doesn’t bother him.
“It feels perfectly fine to me,” he said. “I never wore a hat or gloves [during the cold snap]. I was fine.”
Rugged grrrls
Brittanie Warren says that dressing light has become a habit.
“I’m pretty much used to [the cold],” said the gloveless, hatless West Aurora junior, sporting just a light jacket in 20-degree weather. “It’s not too cold today.”
She says she likes warm weather better than cold. And she hears from her friends when she dresses light.
“They all ask me if I’m cold, or where my gloves are,” she said. “I tell them it just doesn’t bother me much.”
And when temperatures lurch into the 40s or higher?
“I’ll probably just wear a sweater.”
— Patrick Kampert and William Hageman
A bare head isn’t as bad as we have all been told
Jeff Gindorf has seen the no-coat, no-pants, no-socks crowd this winter.
“I went to a U. of I. basketball game and there was a kid wearing flip-flops,” said Gindorf, an internal-medicine physician on staff at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington and a former trustee at the college. “Everybody is trying to look cool. To me, it just looks like they’re cold.”
Gindorf, who has a private practice in Algonquin, admits there are some fallacies associated with clothing choices and winter weather. It’s not true, for instance, that you lose most of your body heat through your cranium–providing, of course, that you have some hair up there.
“Most skin will lose temperature faster than your head,” he said, adding that it would be better to skip the hat than to leave other body parts exposed.
But overall, bundling up is still a good idea. “At 5 to 10 degrees, with the wind at 5 miles an hour, skin will start to freeze in a minute. You start becoming at risk that quick.”
Giving winter a cold (and bare) shoulder is just a teenage expression of independence, Gindorf suggested.
“Throughout history, kids have always rebelled against their parents,” he said. “This is just another form of that.”
The cure?
Wisdom that comes from maturation, Ginsdorf said–and a little bit of the painful white toes that come from mild exposure.
–Patrick Kampert
Words of caution on Uggly fashion
One victim of Chicago’s recent brutally cold weather was fashion.
Hideous poufy jackets, heads wrapped in leopard-print babushkas, monkey-poop yellow snow boots. It was ugly.
But women don’t have to sacrifice style for comfort, according to Chicago fashion designer Yana German.
The 29-year-old Russian-born German, whose fall 2007 line has just come out, shared some tips for dressing for the cold.
Start with socks. Thick wool socks. And please scrap the Uggs. German says to go with a comfortable, loose-fitting pair of water-resistant leather boots.
Working our way up, German suggests a pair of cotton, butt-hugging leggings to hide under skinny jeans or cuffed pinstripe pants. She frowns on loose sweatpants “or, God forbid, tan corduroys.”
German also gives the thumbs-down on button-down tops. She says they’re fine for spring, but a turtleneck or a thin, form-fitting sweater will give better protection against the wind and cold.
Scarves? Yep, the longer the better, so you have to walk carefully to avoid tripping. She also notes that she matches the color of her scarf with her mood.
Then there’s hats. Her advice: an ear-covering cotton or fleece hat. Avoid hats that make it look as if you’re wearing a rabbit and plaid hood. “It is never cute to dress like a hunter,” she said.
For more Yana German, go to www.yanacollection.com.
–William Hageman
Our own winter rebel
Q staff reporter William Hageman (above) is one of the lucky few not bothered by the cold. It was his disregard for polar fleece and other attire of that ilk that inspired us to look for like-minded individuals.
Here’s a recap of Hageman’s typical winter wardrobe:
Jacket: Once it’s above freezing, a windbreaker is plenty; below 32, a jacket that may or may not be zipped, depending on the activity.
Hat: Only when shoveling snow and it’s below zero. And it’s a hideous silver fake fur job inherited from an aunt who always pestered him to dress warmer.
Gloves: Only when shoveling in the worst cold. It’s warmer to shove hands into pants pockets against hot thighs.
Footwear: Leather sneakers until snowfall surpasses a foot; then a 35-year-old pair of snowmobile boots with inoperable, salt-encrusted zippers.
Pants: Yes.
q@tribune.com
