Yes, Grasshopper, it was cold the other night.

It was so cold you should have brought in your brass monkey.

With apologies to the guy who pays the bills, that brass monkey tale is not a salty sea story from the days of wooden ships and iron men.

It had nothing to do with a brass fixture that once held cannon balls. According to that version of the story, when the temperature dropped, the metal fixture would shrink, sending the cannon balls rolling onto the deck.

A trip around the internet brings up a reference to the U.S. Navy Historical Center debunking the story.

I can’t vouch for the shrinking brass fixture version of the story. When I visited Old Ironsides in Boston harbor, I recall that the Navy had stacked cannon balls inside a wooden enclosure.

I know it was very cold last Friday evening and Saturday morning.

It was so cold that the TV weather guy got top billing on the evening news, beating out the Chinese spy balloon, the food fight called Congress, and the usual shootings, fires and mayhem.

Maybe our political leaders can explain how the Chinese steered a balloon to spy on our defense facilities. Don't balloons go where the wind blows?

One important story that got no play last week told how seven western states are about to go to war over water rights as the Colorado River slowly dries. But that is another story for another day.

When I hit the hay on Friday evening, it was 12 below zero, and the wind was howling. When I got up in the morning, it was 14 below. The wind was still howling. Like you, it was a chore to roust my old tail out of the nice warm bed.

On Friday evening, even CNN did a feature with the weatherman on Mt. Washington. Surprise, he said it was cold. Real cold. For the record, at 1 a.m. Saturday, it was 47.2 below. The wind chill was 108.4 below zero.

Of course, real Mainers, not the newcomers like me, will tell you about the good old days when the weather was delivered on WMTW, Channel 8, by a guy named Marty Engstrom who would open the window and tell us it was clear or raining. Marty on the Mountain was not a meteorologist. He was an engineer who worked for the station.

Today, we have real meteorologists, and in some cases, pseudo scientists, explaining the cold snap using terms like "polar vortex."

To me, “polar vortex” sounds like it could be the title of a cheesy Roger Corman SF movie. You know, one where the men wear space suits, the women sport skimpy swimsuits, and you can spot a shadowy guy shoving the terrible monster out of the cave with a 2 x 4.

I admit today's TV weather folks are spot on with their predictions now that they use computer projections based on data collected, collated, and strained through a computer to build a map that most of us can understand.

If you understand the TV news business (not counting the Weather Channel) you know they always send the rookie reporter out in the snow to dodge snowplows and measure the depth of the drift.

Then he, she and they shiver while telling us something we already know. There is snow outside. It is cold.

But their new computer-assisted green screens give us enough info to plan our trips to the store, take care of the pets and make sure we stack plenty of wood by the stove.

And they can suggest it would be a good night to bring in the brass monkey.

Here is some real news for lots of our friends, especially my colleague and pal, Jeff Wells.

The Maine Audubon folks say the big eagle – the Steller’s sea eagle – is back in the Midcoast.

Here is what they say on their website.

“The eagle apparently roosted in the pines off the north side of the Back River bridge and is being seen “by a ton of people” this morning. This is the bridge on Route 127 between Arrowsic and Georgetown.”

This seems to be the same big eagle that caused much excitement last year when it spent a month or so in Boothbay. Even non-birders from out of state would camp out in various local spots, like the parking lot of the post office across from the yacht club, hoping for a peek at the critter.

So far, no reports of Boothbay region sightings, but you can bet Facebook will be a-flutter if someone spots it.

You can bet the local flocks of ducks and geese that decided not to fly south for the winter will be keeping an eye on Big Bird, too.

Last year, it liked them for lunch.