Bill Kirby: A 'cold weather' tale from Alaska … and more celebrities

It's too cold outside for angels to fly.”

– Ed Sheeran

Let's catch up.

I asked you to share your cold weather experiences and Bob Blanchard offers this story from Alaska's Eielson AFB south of Fairbanks.

He writes: "Coldest I've been out and about in was -60°F, that's not wind chill.

"It was February in the early 1970s, I was fellowshipping at a small bar about a mile from the base entrance. We were running our vehicles to keep them from freezing; the bar didn't have plug-ins.

"Closing time, the bar's thermometer registered -60°F. Major ice fog had set in because of the moisture created from our many engines running, about 6-feet visibility. Only way to return to base was for one of us to walk down the road's centerline and lead our caravan of vehicles out of the weather event we had created. We traded out the walker every 10 minutes for the mile it took to reach the base entrance where the ice fog dissipated. I remember my time as the walker as being the coldest I've ever been."

Bob also explains: "Ice fog is composed of small ice crystals suspended in the air, occurring in very cold weather, trapped close to the ground by an inversion layer, a virtual ceiling, cold below, warmer above. That inversion layer was most evident when the base powerplant's chimney smoke would rise to the inversion layer and float horizontally below it."

OLD SCHOOL CELEBRITIES: I also asked if any of you had gone to school public with (future) famous people, and we've found a bunch – including Andy Griffith, Josh Brolin, J.K. Simmons and Meg Ryan.

More: Bill Kirby: Your old yearbooks show us folks before they were famous

More: Bill Kirby: This old classmate was big in Hollywood … real big

Now, Joe Nozzolio, of Augusta adds these:

1. Bob Valesente – I went to school with him for 13 years, and we used to walk to St. Patrick's elementary school together. Bob was a great athlete, playing football and baseball in college. He made All American in baseball, though and became head football coach at the University of Kansas for two years. From there he was linebacker coach for the Green Bay Packers team that went to the Super Bowl. He also did a similar job for the Pittsburgh Steelers under Coach Chuck Noll.

2. Tom Coughlin was my wife Anne's paperboy in Waterloo, N.Y. She also baby-sat for Tom's future wife. Tom is most famous for coaching the New York Giants, winning two Super Bowls.

3. Michael Mukasey was my college fraternity brother at Columbia University. He became a federal judge and was appointed attorney general by President George W. Bush.

Nadine Thomas adds another. She writes: "I, remembered having Bill Bixby ("The Incredible Hulk") in my junior English class at Lowell High School in San Francisco. He was in all our theatric programs and actually was director of them."

(Thank you all for sharing.)

TODAY'S JOKE: A few minutes after his daughter announced her engagement, her father slipped up beside her and whispered, "Does this fellow have any money?"

The daughter shook her head sadly, and said, "Oh, Daddy, you men are all alike. That's exactly what he asked me about you."

Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: There's chilly, there's cold and then there's Alaska