{"id":569,"date":"2008-11-28T18:05:39","date_gmt":"2008-11-28T23:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=569"},"modified":"2008-12-04T15:39:35","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T20:39:35","slug":"early-winter-blahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=569","title":{"rendered":"Early Winter Blahs"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a> <\/p>\n

To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring. <\/p>\n

—W.J. Vogel
\n___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Not that I want to grumble or be surly in the dawn of a fresh new holiday season. I\u2019ve got loads to be thankful for, heaven knows. Decent health, good job. Warm home. Family. Good friends. And a whole lot more. <\/p>\n

But I do feel grumpy. Because it\u2019s winter. I woke up last Friday with nothing more on my mind than a good day at the office, then the weekend. I bustled about, showered and got ready for work. Mixed and drank my Superfood. Pocketed my breakfast cookies. Packed my gym bag. Approached the front door to leave. And almost fell over backward. It had snowed. Not just flurries, either. Had AlGore happened to be standing in my kitchen at that moment, an admittedly remote possibility, I would have assailed him with some very harsh and unkind words. It\u2019s not supposed to snow this early. Not according to his gospel.<\/p>\n

But it had. And still was, in fact. Big Blue sat shivering on the drive, covered with about three inches of solid white. I felt bad for him. I\u2019d let him down. Usually I park him inside the garage if snow is in the forecast.<\/p>\n

That was the problem. No forecasters had called it. No warnings whatsoever. Not a word. I grumbled savagely as I skidded around my drive and swept my truck and scraped the windshield. Warmed up the engine, then finally left for work. It was COLD. And I hate cold. The back roads were slicker than snot. All I need, I thought to myself, is to slide around and get Big Blue banged up yet. But the truck held steady, and we made it safely. <\/p>\n

It kept spitting snow off and on all day. And the next. Inches. I looked in disbelief. The moronic meteorologists babbled incoherently about chances of snow showers. What\u2019s a snow shower? Never heard of such a thing. Either it snows, or it doesn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

Although most of the snow has now disappeared, the cold has not. Or the biting winds.
\nI am, of course, surrounded by strange people who illogically claim to love the snow and cold. Nothing like it, they gush and coo. Let it snow, let it snow, they bleat inanely. To each his own, but truth is, I am very suspicious of such people. Something about them just ain\u2019t right.<\/p>\n

My brother Nate has a pretty sound theory about why most of my siblings abhor winters. Even though some of us obstinately insist on living in northern climes. He claims it\u2019s because when we were growing up, it was always cold. Aylmer had long cold winters back then. Biting winds swept in from Lake Erie. Blew right through you. I can still feel them, piercing to the bone. Our house was cold at night, the barn was cold when we did the chores, riding in the buggies was cold, and school was cold. Of course, we walked to school in the cold. We never warmed up. Not in winter. Just existed in a state of perpetual, incessant numbing cold. <\/p>\n

Nate\u2019s theory makes sense. After absorbing so much cold as children, we\u2019re now on a belated, hopeless and endless quest to get warm and stay warm. <\/p>\n

The holidays are here. Every year it’s the same old tune. Spring arrives with new life and lots of hope, then fades slowly into summer. Lazy summer pokes along and meanders into fall. Football season starts. And then the weeks begin to roll by in earnest. Suddenly it\u2019s Thanksgiving. You know it\u2019s coming, but always are mildly surprised when it arrives. And the year is pretty much over, as the days accelerate into Christmas. By the time you really grasp that, it\u2019s New Year. And it all starts over again. <\/p>\n

I spent Thanksgiving, at least the important part, at Steves. The Thanksgiving meal. Wilma served a huge delicious feast with all the fixings. Just their family and me. Among many other things, I\u2019m thankful to have at least one sibling in the area. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always admired the old pickups and cars on the road. I mean the old Model T\u2019s and Model A\u2019s you see chugging along, usually when there\u2019s a car show or local parade somewhere. I always think of the Joad family in \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath,\u201d fleeing the Dust Bowl with all their belongings bundled and strapped onto their creaking and overloaded old jalopy. The movie is worth watching for its vintage vehicles alone. The old Tin Lizzies also remind me of what my father must have seen when he was a boy. Maybe even the very same vehicle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never ridden in one. Until yesterday. While at brother Steves for lunch. He just bought a 1931 Model A pickup, original, fully restored. After the meal, we went outside and I inspected his new prize. Very proud, he is. We squeezed into the tiny cab, and he choked the engine and pushed the starter. It wheezed to life instantly. Three speed with reverse. Takes some effort to wrestle with the steering wheel, while simultan-eously clutching and shifting. Steve managed OK; I looked out for opposing traffic at all crossroads. Everyone we met reacted, one way or another. One guy stared at us as if he’d just eaten some bad turkey. The next guy almost fell out of his car, waving. We merrily puttered onward at about 30 mph.<\/p>\n

Steve took driving lessons when he bought it. Driving the old truck is certainly not like driving a modern one. All he needs now is period clothing. Duster, goggles, old floppy hat. <\/p>\n

old-truck1.jpg<\/a>
\nSteve and his truck. Big Blue sulks in the background.<\/p>\n

old-truck2.jpg<\/a>
\nIra and the truck. It has no name as of yet.
\nI’d suggest Little Green. Or Old Green.<\/p>\n

old-truck3.jpg<\/a>
\nSteve opens the gas line on the gravity flow tank.<\/p>\n

old-truck4.jpg<\/a>
\nOn the road.<\/p>\n

old-truck5.jpg<\/a>
\nView from the passenger’s seat.<\/p>\n

old-truck6.jpg<\/a>
\nWe stopped at an Amish friend’s place to show off. They weren’t home.<\/p>\n

Today is Black Friday. Locally, the outlets opened at midnight or 1 AM, with huge sales to lure shoppers. From all accounts, retailers are expecting a dismal season. I have never fought the Black Friday crowds and don\u2019t imagine I ever will. I usually wait for the post-Christmas 85% off sales. That\u2019s when I do most of my clothes shopping for the year. At quality brand name retailers, too, not Wal Mart. (Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with Wal Mart, other than you might get trampled to death by stampeding hordes of bargain hunters. As happened to some poor guy in New York this morning.)<\/p>\n

I keep getting many bright glossy shopping catalogs in the mail from numerous hopeful companies. All are promptly deposited in the trash, along with the twice weekly desperate reminders from the \u201cNew Yorker\u201d that it\u2019s time to renew my subscription. <\/p>\n

I had been perusing the \u201cNew Yorker\u201d quite faithfully because of its generally well-written articles. But a few months ago, the magazine so blatantly spewed pro-Obama gibberish that I couldn\u2019t stomach it anymore. Fried my brain. No mas, I said. Not now. Not ever again. The last ten issues are stacked on my kitchen table, unopened and unread. I won\u2019t read them. And I won\u2019t renew. Anyone who wants those issues, let me know and I\u2019ll gladly gift them to you. Otherwise, I will trash them all soon. That\u2019s where they belong anyway.<\/p>\n

Last week my blog was linked to another high traffic site. Amish America.<\/a> The blogger, Erik Wesner, linked to one of my old reflections on Amish church songs. I definitely noticed a substantial uptick in hits, and appreciate the exposure to a larger group of readers. I emailed Erik and thanked him. He responded quite graciously. Welcome to any readers who arrived at my site through his link. <\/p>\n

By the way, anyone out there who has a blog and enjoys this one is welcome to link to it. It\u2019s the only way I\u2019ll ever get true widespread exposure. <\/p>\n

Last weekend I finally nailed that cherry pie. From another Amish source. The kind housewife insisted that I take a whole pie, even though I protested quite vociferously. It was fresh out of the oven. Looked mouth watering. But I can\u2019t eat a whole pie. Not even in a week\u2019s time. Freeze it, she said. She prevailed. But on Sunday night I took what was left of it with me to Paul and Anne Marie Zooks for supper. Where it was polished off. Delicious, it was. Even though not entirely in sync with my regular diet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring. —W.J. Vogel ___________________________________________ Not that I want to grumble or be surly in the dawn of a fresh new holiday season. I\u2019ve got loads to be thankful for, heaven knows. Decent health, good job. Warm home. Family. Good friends. And a whole lot more. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}