Winter

It's 32 degrees in Austin today and water mains are breaking. The Austin American-Statesman front page this morning declared: "Arctic Blast Arrives."

I'm going to Minnesota tomorrow for my Grandpa Walt's funeral. The high is expected to be 5 degrees. The low is -15 degrees. That's negative 15 degrees. Electrons stop revolving around atoms at temperatures much lower than that.

But I love the cold. It's in my blood. My Dad grew up in Minnesota winters and told us stories of playing ice hockey on frozen fields and ponds.

He moved our family to the cold, cold mountains of the Inland Northwest when I was five. He bought a Ford Bronco to drive around in. The kind with the rubber floor coating.

I grew up pushing old cars out of snow banks. I can't smell the gasoline-infused exhaust of an old car and not think about pushing my friend Brian Holdaway's '66 Mustang out of three-foot snow drifts on the way home from school.

Cold and snow and dim grey skies freeze themselves to your soul and never let go.

So I wore my wool sweater and put on my trench coat this morning and tried to get cold—even though I was sweating.