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The Light of Sun on Snow

Minnesota is a remarkably sunny place, even in the winter.  However, these last few days, we have had foggy weather, as if we had caught a cold.  In fact, I, if not the whole state, have had a cold.  I think I caught it in Arizona, on a recent visit.  I have become acutely aware of what a sore diaphagm is, and have taken to hugging myself as I cough.  It does not work.

Minnesota and I are fog-bound. 


I was born fog-bound.  I was born in Tacoma.  We lived twenty miles south of Puget Sound, so a visit to Tacoma required a drive, and a descent on Pacific Avenue to the level of the Sound, which caused one to realize, even without having read it, that Dante was wrong about the descent into Hades.  It is not through fire, down to ice:  it is fog all the way!  I remember walking in front of a car, with a flashlight, trying to find lane markers. 

(I can also recall packing our whole neighborhood basketball team into a Ford coupe, and driving down Pacific Avenue to play games in Tacoma; a Ford coupe with almost no brakes, requiring that we put the car in reverse on the top of the hill, and ride the clutch all the way down.  We were not in a state of fog:  we were in a suicidal state.  Sixteen-year-olds should not be permitted to drive; not even bicycles!)

This fog, while hiding the river floor and the cities beyond, is a mere gauze applied to a cold cut:  snow below, fog beyond. 

We know cold and snow.  Fog allows us to stay home on Sunday morning, coffee in hand, three newspapers around, and pretend that we have the resolve and character, not only to meet these conditions, but to endure them with good humor. 

We do not know how Tacomans endure, without the light of sun on snow.

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