Tag: winter
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The Impossibly Long Life of a Snowflake
It’s a simple act of nature. A billion snowflakes drifting slowly earthward…sometimes rising, sometimes blown sideways…but always downward. If they each made a sound like a bird, someone stepping out onto a frozen porch in the North Country of the Adirondacks would be deafened. But each flake makes a sound only it can hear. It…
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Cooks of the North (A True Story of Survival)
If you’re traveling in the north country fair where the winds hit heavy on the borderline… –Bob Dylan “Girl From The North Country” We who chose to live here in the North Country are a hardy breed. You can see signs of this all around you. The cows have thicker hides, the trees have…
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Coal For Christmas
My father grew up poor. Not the kind of poor where he would walk through ten inches of snow barefoot or go from house to house asking for bread. Just the kind of poor that would keep his father one step ahead of the rent collector. His parents provided the best they could, but, by…
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What Am I Doing Down Here?
Hey, you. Yeah, you with the walking stick. You’ve gotta help me man! I don’t have much time, so you have to do something and do it quick. You look like you’ve hiked a few miles in your day…the way you favor your right hip and lean on your wooden staff when you step up…
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On a Night Like This
‘I remember it was on a night very much like this…’ —Words spoken around 10,000 campfires by a billion storytellers for a million years. I found myself staring at the clouds drifting slowly past the quarter moon. In these early days of autumn, it should be a little cooler, but it was a mild evening.…
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The Brick Pond
I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. The name is Owego, which is derived from a Native American term that means “where the valley widens” or something close to that. The village has everything that a typical small American town should have. There is a beautiful cemetery on the hill…
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A Room With a View
Everyone likes a room with a view. Otherwise, why do we need windows? Does anyone want to look out over the Fresh Kills Land on Staten Island, the Gowanus Canal or the latest toxic runoff pond from some mine in northern Canada? No, we don’t. And, I believe I can speak for most of us,…
patrickjegan 