Winter

Baseball is over. Philadelphia is the world champion. I had Pat Burrell in my fantasy league, and he hit .250 with 33 home runs. That's about how my team went. I finished 6th in a 12 team league, a substantial improvement over last year but still well out of the money. I'll get 'em next year.

For 99 years, Cubs fans have been saying, "We'll get 'em next year." This was the year we should've got 'em. This was the year there should have been magic. When Zambrano threw the no-no in the last couple of weeks it was a sign. It should've been a sign. It wasn't a sign. It didn't mean a damned thing.

We had hotel reservations in Chicago for the Series, a hundred feet from Rush Street. We had no illusions about actually going to the games, but we wanted to be there in the city, a city I haven't lived in for decades but still feel a part of. Chicago, your heart still beats in me, but please: stop. I want no part of your long Winters of regret.

Left with time to fill, sports television is again heavy with people playing cards. Imagine: watching people playing cards on television. Playing cards is what you do when you have nothing in the world to do; watching people playing cards is what you do when you have nothing in the world to do and no one in the world to do it with.

For the next five months, we will be subject to hour upon hour of professional basketball. And hockey. I understand that there are already hockey games being played. If they can create a programmable chip that will prevent a television from receiving programming with sex and violence, they should be able to create a chip that will make it possible for me to scan the channels without seeing hockey.

On my list of chores this weekend: take the golf clubs out of the car. I drive around all summer with clubs, shoes and a change of clothes in the trunk, feeling rakish and care-free because at a moment's notice I can be on the course. I'll replace the clubs with a snow shovel and a couple of blankets, pretending that I might need survival gear but knowing my life seldom leaves the well-plowed streets.

Winter again. Darkness both before and after work.  Big fires in the fireplace to try to keep the chill off, but only temporary warmth. Eventually the fires burn down, and someone has to venture out for more wood.

The radio hillbillies who predict the weather based on caterpillars are split in their analysis, some saying cold and long, some saying warm and short. Every year I write down what they say, intending to check their accuracy and taunt them publicly if they're wrong, and every year I lose the paper and can't remember what they said anyway. Winter will be Winter; it will be too cold and too long. It will be made longer by people who live in the south, gloating.

"You should move down here," they write from godforsaken places like Alabama. "We play golf year-round."

I lived in southern California for 10 years, with year-round predictability and Christmases at the beach. I grew to hate it. My life cycle requires change and fallow months, no matter how much I loathe them. Spring is transcendently good only because it follows Winter, and I won't sacrifice Spring just for the sake of avoiding Winter.

Still, one wonders: My wife has booked us a trip to Minnesota for Christmas. There are friends and family there but come on: Minnesota in December? My wife talks of hot cocoa and snowmobile rides. I think only of this: In full Winter garb I look like Cartman.

We'll get 'em next year.

Comments

[Wally]

You live in the south. Has it ever looked like the picture in the post on your patio?

[Tom]

That is my patio.

[Steve]

Man, I can't wait to get back down south where there is no winter! I'll trade shoveling the driveway on Christmas day for a day out on the boat ANY day!

[Steve]

Oh and Tom, you look like Cartman during the summer too. :) (Sorry, couldn't resist, signed Melonhead)

[Cathleen]

Tom,
Your post today reminded me of something else you said once upon a time. You once told me that one of the things you found disconcerting about California was the lack of necessity for a Plan B in case of weather. After 10 years in SoCal, now 2 years in The (rainy) Netherlands, I finally get it. Seems like it would be preferable to always be able to count on the weather, but I find the unpredictibility strangely satisfying.