And then I wrote ...
by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus
... that as I write this, Monday, Dec. 28, radio and television stations are repeating winter storm warnings, and sure enough, it appears the storm is going on outside my window.
At least, I have TV news outlets and the Weather Channel to refer to today, although they vary wildly in their predictions. Had I had to depend on those sources yesterday or the day before, they would not have been available to me since the cable system made them inaccessible. Today, all is well again.
I was not among those wishing for a white Christmas.
We had a little white covering Dec. 18, but it was weird snow, looking something like coarse sandpaper or bubble wrap on the lawn.
But it snowed again Christmas Eve, after a severe thunderstorm warning Christmas Eve eve, and Christmas morning the pine trees were beautifully flocked as if artificially trimmed. Since I had no place to go, I didn't mind the snow.
The day before that Christmas Eve snow, I noticed a squirrel working on a chunk of about a third of an ear of field corn on the neighbor's lawn. It was late afternoon, and when a car came around the corner, the squirrel headed for the utility pole and wire-walked away. Meanwhile, a Blue Jay had observed the corn eating, and, coast clear, flew down to dine on ear corn. Toward dusk, the squirrel returned, and I could tell from my vantage point it started looking for its abandoned meal in an area maybe six or eight feet away from the actual location. So much for the old wives' tale of the inerrancy of a squirrel's memory of where it buried something or hid something! He (or she) left, but with the new snow on the ground Christmas morning, it returned and went right to the leftover corn and started eating with relish. Or maybe it was just plain. It looked around as if to say to any observer, "I knew where it was all the time!"
Listening to the brouhaha about the propriety of using presidential candidate Ted Cruz' little daughters as trained monkeys in a political ad reminded me of observing Amy Carter, in her pre-teen years, when her family visited McGregor while on a riverboat trip. Fellow newspaper staffer Linda Montet and I applied for press credentials, and after appearing for an interview with Secret Service agents at a Prairie du Chien motel, were granted press passes. There was a stage of sorts set up in the main McGregor street, but as with most things government arranged, there was a long program. And Amy was bored, and fussed and pouted as a bored child can.
All the major Democrats in attendance were invited up to John Culver's aerie on the hill above the town after the festivities, but an agent informed us our press passes were not good enough to get us up there.
And pouting didn't help.
