Winter

I hate winter.  I really hate winter.  The days are too short, even though they start to get longer on December 21.  The days are too cold and the nights are even colder.  Getting the newspapers and mail from the box at the street require bundling up like I'm going to the North Pole.  Not to mention the ice that will form on the driveway.

Winter has two colors.  Brown and dirty white.  And did I mention that the white stuff that turns dirty white is cold?

Years ago when I worked at the hospital a bunch of friends were planning a ski weekend.  I noticed that one of the regulars in the ski group was not participating in the plans.  I asked her why she wasn't going and she explained that after 20 years she had finally realized that she hated cold weather and why in tarnation had she ever gone skiing in the first place?  Aha!  I had figured that out before ever learning to ski.

I remember an ice skating Saturday when I was in High School.  Our phys ed teacher lived on the Detroit River.  She invited a bunch of us to her house to ice skate.  I went along, but  still remember the cold wind blowing and how much I did not enjoy the day. 

Not that I always hated everything to do with winter.  A cousin of mine lived in East Detroit north of Nine Mile Road.  The I-94 expressway was being constructed and the area had been dug down to lower the grade of the road.  We grabbed our sleds and went sledding down the embankment.  That was fun.

But now I find that if I didn't like winter before, every year I like it less and less.  Cold dreary days, snow, ice, snow.  Did I mention cold?  And snow?  Yuck!