In the bleak midwinter!

“They� said that it was going to be a hard winter and “they� have not been mistaken in that projection. We here in southern Illinois are in the midst of a long, seemingly endless, stretch of cold temperatures that have not been above freezing and do not project to be that way for quite a while now. The term “cabin fever� would more than apply to those souls who have been trapped in their abodes due to the snow and the interminable icy conditions that prevent them from safely getting out and socializing with others of their breed and kind. Man was not meant to be a solitary creature and when they are forced into that situation they begin to resemble the cave dwelling creatures that once populated this earth before civilization turned them into souls who go to restaurants and clubs and bars and other places where they gather together to converse and to have social intercourse.

When we think of the temperatures outside we are invariably drawn to thoughts of those who, either by choice or circumstance, must be out in this weather. There are the homeless who cannot even be permitted into temporary shelter due to some past transgression that keeps them away from the most vulnerable among us, our children. It is tough to feel sorry for people like this but, when we see some of them shuffling along carrying all that they have in this world with them, it is difficult not to feel some sympathy for anyone out sleeping in temperatures like this. Some of them are, each and every season, found frozen to death as they experience the supposed quiet passage that comes with that type of death. Many animals suffer greatly with this type of weather and particularly the ice cover that prevents creatures such as birds from finding the sustenance that they need trapped beneath the frozen ground upon which they cannot peck through. We keep some extra cereal around and spread it outside during these periods and the crowds of our feathered friends that gather to feast on this rare treasure simply cannot be described. We know that we are saving small and vulnerable lives every time that we do this sort of thing.

And we remember the winter of 1962 when we delivered newspapers for the regional daily and how we dreaded the approaching hour when we would have to go and begin that task in twenty eight degree below zero conditions. We still do not know how we got through that or even why we tried, but it still defines us to this very day. And we think of folks such s the mail people and their pledge: through rain, snow, sleet or hail!

When we think of this type of winter, the term “winter soldier� usually eventually comes to mind. This connotation comes from the times during the Revolutionary War when those who were with general George Washington suffered through the killing times at places like Valley Forge where there was not enough to eat, nor places to keep warm, nor even shoes to cover the feet of those who would go on to earn the freedoms that we all seem to take so much for granted these days. It is interesting to note, and they will tell you if you visit Valley Forge, that it was not the worst winter that Washington’s troops ever spent. A time a couple of years later over in New Jersey was far worse than Valley Forge ever thought about being. But the experience at the Forge was the defining time when those who would go on with Washington to see it through to the end decided that was what that they were going to do. Many deserted and went back to their comfortable homes and hearths but those who stayed gained something that few can say that they had. They were the first true Americans as their force was the foundation that this united nation was built upon. As they marched up and down the colonies fighting the British and their foreign paid allies, they saw a vision of this nation that few have ever seen since.

When we think of this particular winter we also think of some of the hard times that our nations leaders have gone through as they have attempted to lead this country forward in their respective times. The winter of 1933 must have been very difficult and defining for Franklin D. Roosevelt as he waited for the spring and his time to begin to try to lead this nation out of the mess that it had gotten itself into. In was during this time that Roosevelt told a close friend that if he did not succeed in his efforts that he might be the last American president, such was the predicament that he and his nation found themselves in. And we remember the winter of 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, when America plunged into a war that it was not certain that it could win. Again Roosevelt led us through something that we had never before seen in our history toward a better time that a day in early spring of 1945 would see him depart the scene, just like the ancient Moses, before the battle had quite been won.

We remember an episode of the television series MASH that showed a terrible winter in Korea during what has been called “the winter war� because of the bone numbing cold on the Korean Peninsula and we wonder today just how the North Koreans cope with this same type of climate as their leadership stays warm and comfortable and well fed as many of its citizens freeze and starve each winter season while the South Koreans lie comfortably in their beds.

In this particular winter we think of our own leader, Barack Obama, and what he must be going through as he confronts the lowest approval ratings of his career. This must indeed be a tough winter for him as he realizes the tough fight ahead as we confront another election year in which the radical republicans again threaten to take the nation down the road to ruin much as they did before 1929. And we remember those who try to scrape up enough to pay their heating bills in houses that may soon be taken from them in foreclosure, leaving them possibly to face a time living in their cars or on the street.

We have an acquaintance who has a brother who recently passed away and still lies in a funeral home morgue until the ground can thaw enough to put his body away. When we think about this sort of thing we think often about those souls who are on their way out of this world and how many of them may be hanging on just to see this winter through and see the hope and promise of spring placed before them for one last time before they go to their reward. Spring is still some distance away but there is always the promise that is shown by things like major league baseball’s spring training that began this last week down in Florida and out in Arizona. But then there is the awful truth that the groundhog out in Paxatownie, Pennsylvania did see his shadow and there will probably be six more weeks of winter still yet to confront us poor souls who must deal with this sort of thing.

The only saving grace from it all is the fact that the great and the small must all face winter and it tests us all for the better days that must surely someday come along.

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.