In addition to its other attributes, winter is a time of low humidity. That gives static electricity opportunity to romp in its annoying way. It does dangerous things, too, such as making it easy for your city to burn down. We’ve joked for decades how January and February are the months of computer malfunctions, but it’s true: Static electricity caused by low humidity causes all kinds of otherwise inexplicable gremlins to invade our electronic devices.
It’s New Year’s Day. As a kid, I noted it as the day Christmas ended. The music cut off on the radio, the lights went off around the neighborhood and, curiously, the snowmen came down all over, too.
I’ve never lost the excitement of snow days. Remember anxiously anticipating the moment when school was called off thanks to that wonderful, fluffy white ice of freedom? Though “inclement weather” may do little to change my obligations now that class schedules are a distant memory, there’s still nothing like the feeling of being snowed in.
Today is Groundhog Day. Yesterday marked 17 years since I moved from the Eastern wasteland to the hallowed hills of Ohio. I’ve always liked Groundhog Day, and as a child I could not understand why we did not get it off from school (though given its location in the calendar we occasionally did for other reasons, but not often because in my district school was canceled only when it was certain that no buses could complete their routes).