Meet the WSS...

For those of us who live in high elevations and in the snow, winter is always fraught with dangers. From slip-and-fall to pneumonia, a lot can happen.

When I was a young teenager, we had among friends a rather cruel expression to designate all old people. An acronym that could be roughly translated from French as “WSW or Won't Survive Winter.”

My parents that were closing in to their 60s heard it so many times from me that they started using it. The expression originated from a severely cold weather streak during the entire month February 1956 that caused massive damage and the loss of 12,000 lives throughout France.

We were then running a family restaurant, high up in the French Alps and occasionally catered to large buses filled with retirees.

Of course, these hapless folks were casually labeled WSW, not just by me, but by my brother, sister and both parents.

Today, I can laugh about it, since I've finally joined the WSW club and can only hope to make it at least to the spring of 2019!