Christmas Eve Postcard:
having a wonderful time here
do not miss the snow
There was a time when I embraced the cold and the snow.
Grew up loving sledding and snurfing (snow boards before they became snow boards) and tobogganing.
Snow forts and snow ball fights.
Would stay out sledding on Crestview School hill until my hands were numb and when we got inside I would run the bathroom sink full of hot water and plunge my hands in to warm up.
No matter how many times I was told that didn’t work or that it made my fingers hurt worse, I couldn’t help myself.
As far as my fingers go, in winter, I picture poor Bob Cratchit in his scarf and coat, trying to warm his hands from the single candle that lit his desk.
Never got into cross country skiing but I enjoyed going out to Hoffmaster State Park and WALKING the cross country ski trails and thinking I was a Jeremiah Johnson type lost in the woods in winter. (Though there was that time I stayed too late and it got dark and got lost in the woods. I knew that Lake Michigan was out there and if I could get to the beach, I could find the walkway back to the parking lot. I made it but Jack London’s To Build a Fire was playing my mind).
Don’t get me wrong.
I get it.
But down here I was walking the beach in the sunshine.
Some kids (most likely from Wisconsin) were beach boarding.
I wasn’t getting out of my car and stepping into 4 inches of slush that went over my shoes and soaked my socks.
I wasn’t scrapping my windows.
I wasn’t worrying if my car would slide through the stop sign.
I wasn’t shoveling snow.
I wasn’t worried if I had gas for the snowblower.
I wasn’t worried that the pipes might freeze.
I wasn’t … cold.
I thought about how long I spent in Michigan winters.
50 of them I lived through.
I think that’s long enough.
Sometimes, I still don’t feel like I have thawed out.
Like I tell folks, Stalin would send people to Siberia … to punish them.
Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve 2025.
I am down here in the Low Country.
Having a wonderful time.
Do not miss the snow.
No Haiku For You 