The Joys of Winter

Winter always has been my least favorite season. Yet I may be mellowing with age. It certainly helps to live in southern Missouri where the harsh, snowy winters of my childhood and youth in Iowa are a distant memory (I didn’t care much for the six winters I spent in suburban Chicago in the 1990s either).

Maybe I’m more mature, or less of a wimp, or just more appreciative, but I’ve come to not dread winter as much as in the past. In fact, the season has unique benefits.

Food has a lot to do with the upside of winter. There’s the stuff that really tastes good on those crisp days: chili, oatmeal, hot chocolate, hot tea. There’s the holiday baking, the homemade fruitcake that’s inappropriate any other time.

There’s also the homey atmosphere unlike the rest of the year: a blazing fire in the fireplace; scented candles throughout the house; sweaters that keep you warm.

Of course winter provides an escape from the drudgery of summer: oppressive heat that makes it uncomfortable to be outside; mowing the yard and pulling weeds every week; avoiding skunks on my morning walk; dealing with the threat of mosquitoes, ticks and poison ivy; suffering through allergies that make it difficult to breathe.

Perhaps the best part of winter is Christmas and all that it means: family coming home to visit; my wife knocking herself out making fabulous meals; playing the favorite Christmas music that hibernates the rest of the year; a long vacation from work; and, of course, remembering the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Driven to Distraction

On a recent three-day trip to Northern California I had the pleasure of navigating amidst millions of cars in and around San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento. Sure, bottlenecks appeared every once in awhile, but overall the experience proved satisfying. Golden State drivers know how to drive.

California motorists are aggressive, but not rude. They drive the speed limit (or slightly above), merge in a timely manner and signal their intentions.

Then I had to come back to Springfield, Mo., which I believe must have the worst drivers in the United States. Seemingly every day on the way to work, a driver will sit at a stop sign for a few seconds, then pull out of front of me and drive 20 miles an hour. Drivers fail to get into the intersection when turning left, leaving me stranded for another round at a red light. They stop while on an interstate ramp. On a one-way street they turn left from the middle lane. They drive on frosty mornings without even scraping a peep hole in their windshield.

The list goes on and on, but I’ll quit whining. Maybe all the street and highway improvements in and around Springfield will make for a better motoring experience. I am grateful not to live in the one place with even worse drivers: Branson.

The Glories of Christmases Long, Long Ago

Some of the most popular Christmas songs blaring on radio stations these days are nostalgic tunes that bear little resemblance to the holiday in 2009.

Christmas these days too often seems to be about eating and shopping, not the wistful reminiscing of songs of yesteryear. I’m sure some of the twentysomething singers belting these songs can’t really appreciate the experience of the songwriters.

Specifically, the ever-popular “Sleigh Ride” talks of a couple holding hands and singing choruses while taking a horse-drawn journey in the snow. A stop at Farmer Gray’s house involves watching chestnuts pop in the fireplace. The scene, according to the song, is “like a picture print by Currier and Ives.” Who knows these days what a picture print is or who Currier and Ives were? See above.

Another tune, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” is even more obscure for today’s crowd. Kids no longer go jingle belling and friends don’t come to call with Christmas wishes. I suppose there are still “gay happy meetings,” but of a different variety.

We really don’t see people toasting marshmallows, telling scary ghost stories, hanging out under the mistletoe or even caroling out in the snow much any more. We do see people lined up for hours to buy a flat-screen TV or an iPhone.

In any regard, the continued playing time such songs receive on the air is an indication that people have ideals of what Christmas should be. At our house we’ll all be snuggled around the fireplace, eating a traditional meal made by my traditional wife with our traditional family. Truly, our hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near.

Yet Another Transgression

Tiger Woods on Wednesday joined a long list of noted athletes, politicians and entertainers this year to make a vague public apology for an unspecified sin. His statement came after media reports of his carrying on a 2½-year adulterous relationship with a cocktail waitress.

Woods, of course, didn’t admit infidelity. He merely said he had “not been true to my values” and “I regret those transgressions with all my heart.”

For most of the statement, Wood lashed out at the media for hounding him. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions,” Woods wrote. He said he had been “dismayed” by the lack of privacy afforded him.

Woods can’t have it both ways. You can’t be the nation’s most adored athlete, one who makes millions swinging a golf club and additional millions for commercial endorsements, and then say your private life is off limits. The amazing thing is that such a high-profile celebrity could carry on a lengthy affair and keep it secret.

You would think that common sense would dissuade such public figures from engaging in extramarital affairs. While some emerge relatively unscathed, others lose their wife and career in short order.

One might wonder why Tiger Woods would have an affair with a cocktail waitress in the first place. For five years he has been married to gorgeous blonde Swedish model Elin Nordegren. The couple has a 2½-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son.

But affairs, especially for the rich and powerful, usually aren’t about what they have but about what lies beyond their grasp. For the common man as well as for the man who seemingly has everything, the lure of the forbidden fruit can bring ruin if not quenched.

My First Black Friday Shopping Experience

The Kohl’s advertisement in Thursday’s newspaper got my attention with all the promises of Black Friday savings. I didn’t really think setting the alarm for 3:30 a.m. to get to the store by 4 would be sensible, but I happened to wake up at 3:30 anyway when nature called. So I drove to the retailer, the first time I ventured out the day after Thanksgiving on an early morning shopping spree.

There sure seemed to be a lot of vehicles in the parking lot, but I comforted myself with the assurance that the crowd milling around the front door didn’t appear to be too long. Silly me. Upon closer inspection, the line wended its way around the sidewalk for hundreds and hundreds of people. Some, I learned from an article in the Saturday newspaper, had been there for 10 hours.

Anyway, once I got inside the discount chain among the mass of bargain hunters I resolutely went to find the two items I wanted: a suitcase and a knife set, both more than two-thirds off the normal price. I pitied the shoppers dawdling in the clothes and appliance sections. Even though I had my items in hand by 4:15, the line for the cash registers already stretched halfway around the store.

I have to hand it to Kohl’s. They not only know how to attract buyers, they also know how to get them out of the store as quickly as possible. A man with a large “Line Starts Here” sign left no doubt where I needed to go. Every few minutes over the intercom another man announced that saving places in line wouldn’t be tolerated. Once I finally made it to the checkout, the store had every cash register operating and even baggers at most stations to speed the process along.

By 4:45 I had escaped to the parking lot, the receipt telling me I had saved $220. I’m glad I didn’t pause to look at shirts. By the time I left, the waiting line had grown to twice as long as when I entered it.

Good Television Still Exists

If you know me, you realize I’m a nostalgic guy. I’d rather watch a movie from the ‘50s, a TV show from the ‘60s and listen to the music of the ‘70s than most anything available today in any of those formats.

Yet, amazingly in this crude, sex-saturated culture there still are multiple refreshing new programs on television every week. When I have the time, I don’t like to miss the following:

• CBS Sunday Morning. This 90-minute staple before church is the best news show on the tube, mixing an eclectic batch of interesting features each week. The correspondents are as varied as the segments, which all make for an interesting look at music, art, sports, religion and a whole lot more.

• The Middle (ABC, Wednesday nights). It’s been a long time since I’ve followed a primetime broadcast series, but I’m fairly hooked on this one. Patricia Heaton carries the series as a middle-aged harried, unsuccessful car saleswoman with a largely disengaged husband and three emotionally needy children. The fact that the family lives in rural Indiana and struggles to make ends meet only makes it more credible. The show is devoid of the bawdy talk and innuendo that passes for humor on much of network television.

• Monk (USA, Friday nights). This groundbreaking series is about to wrap up its eighth season. The scripts aren’t as crisp as in the early years, yet it’s difficult not to get wrapped up in the lives of the title character and supporting cast.

• You Are What You Eat (BBC America, Tuesday nights). Gillian McKeith is Britain’s weight cop, plucking two desperate people to live in her house each week in an effort to keep them from eating themselves into an early grave. She mercilessly scolds them for eating a variety of junk foods and sets the guidelines for turning their lives around. The show has a lot of pathos, as the houseguests hate her tactics yet realize they must incorporate better eating habits for their survival. The show always is informative and is never dull. By the end of the eight-week treatment guests generally have dropped 15-25 pounds.

• Jeopardy! (syndicated, late afternoon or early evening). Now in its 26th season, the classic answer and question game show always entertains.

Animal Rights, Come on Down!

Retired game show host Bob Barker has given $1 million to Drury University in Springfield to establish “a professorship on animal rights.” Barker, who graduated from the school in 1947, hopes the gift will lead to Drury offering the nation’s first animal rights undergraduate program.

“I think some students would become full-fledged animal rights activists,” said Barker, who last year gave another $1 million to set up the Drury Forum on Animal Rights, which resulted in a class taught on animal ethics. Barker also has donated endowment funds for animal rights law at eight law schools around the country.

I agree that animals shouldn’t be mistreated. But the whole idea of animals being endowed with certain inalienable rights seems a bit, uh, wacky.

Animals can be great companions. I’ve shed a tear or two when pet birds or dogs have died. But, from a biblical perspective, animals have no souls. Their purpose on earth is to be companions to humans and sometimes food for humans.

Hey, Bob, how about giving a million bucks to set up a course explaining that human life is precious and we shouldn’t be throwing aborted babies in trash cans?