JUST TO COLD TO BOTHER

Monday, Martin Luther King Holiday,  9;00 AM.  9 degrees F, wind SW, calm at present. Humidity 86%, barometer 30.29 in. It should be noted that the conditions here, partway up the bluff, are often somewhat different than at lake level downtown, where the wind is unobstructed.  Temperature is usually about the same.  Conversely, winter temperature and particularly snowfall can be much different, usually colder and snowier, at the top of the lake bluff and the hills and valleys to the west.  The sun was only a hopeful glimmer on the eastern horizon this morning, and it still has not made an appearance.  It looks like another dark, cold day suppressed by a low overcast.  The channel, which was frozen over briefly yesterday morning is  completely open again.We got another inch or two of snow last night and my thinly gloved fingers got cold scraping it off driveway and walk.
    The holiday is always a somber one for me, as it brings back all the tragedies of the ‘60’s; the assassination of not only MLK but also JFK and RFK, and the riots. the divisions and failures of Vietnam, the constant unrest and acrimony of those tumultuous times, which wore one down, and down and down. Many of the memories are very personal and unpleasant, and I have to counter them with happy memories of early marriage, a young family, and the challenges and rewards of higher education and an accelerating career.  The ‘60’s, like most of life, were for me a mixture of joy and sadness, success and failure, hope and despair.
    Yesterday was an iconic Bayfield winter Sunday; cold, snowy, windy, quiet.  It summoned one to the fireplace, which I kept well stoked all day.  I cleared the driveway in the morning and took a blustery walk with the dog in the afternoon on the  fresh snow, but the truck never left the garage, which is a true rarity.  Every excuse to go somewhere was vetoed, and we had a nice day, uninterrupted except for welcome family phone calls.
 I am almost finished reading Mornings on Horseback, the latest Teddy Roosevelt biography, and I still can’t say I like him much, not that it makes any difference whether I do or not.
    Buddy must have read yesterday’s blog, as he left the rabbits under the shed unmolested.  Or maybe it was just too cold to bother with them, as it was with most else.