A stray thought ran through my head a few days ago. I was sitting on my porch gazing at the new arrivals in my wife's flower garden enjoying the sights and the warm lazy sunlight when to paraphrase the Lone Rangers radio introduction, out of the blue came the thought, It'll be nice when winter returns and the air is brisk and cool breezes blow. Now where in the devil did that thought come from? I think after careful and laborious research I decided it must be an age related thing. In a way it is I think, it certainly has a lot to do with retirement. When you're retired you can decide when you want to leave your house and venture out into the weather elements of the moment. Remember when you were working and you would look out the window to see if the weather had gotten better, and it hadn't. What you would have given if only you could have taken off your tie and poured yourself another cup of coffee and forgotten about venturing out today, maybe tomorrow.

Well in retirement that little piece of wishfulness works. You can pick your day or time to venture out. Thus winters no longer hold dread for me. If it's too bad I stay in. That is why winters have become a season not to cringe thinking about, but a season to enjoy whenever you want.