Part 1: Almost Two Years Without Winter

Those not privy to living in snow should understand that Nat
King Cole was full of shit. Of course he was dreaming of a white
Christmas...in Los Angeles! Everyone dreams of a white Christmas when
they aren't shoveling it off the walk. There's a reason for those high
suicide rates in Scandinavia.

Having been raised with the inevitability of a White Christmas, I
was pleasantly surprised to enjoy last year's Festivities in a
sub-tropical climate. In fact, apart from brief flirtations with the
thought of snow, we were supposed to be significantly closer to the
equator this year. Instead, fate has dragged us closer to the Arctic
Circle.

Thus, it is with some discomfort that I watch 4...5...8...10...12
inches of white Christmas pile up on my porch. I've gone from banana
spiders and fresh seafood, to venison jerky and box elder bugs. I've
traded in my flip-flops for boots, my A/C for LP, and a body board for
a snow tube. There are some growing pains.

Part 2: A N'awlins Christmas Story

I was talking to my mother few days ago. "It just occurred to me," she
says, "on Christmas day, I work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. I'm relieved by
you're father, who then works 3 p.m. to 11 p.m." Now approaching their
sixties, they're the spitting image of what's gone wrong with America's
social system. A 30-year Army veteran and a hard working housewife
who've raised 4 productive members of society who have no investments,
rent their apartment, and own only one vehicle--which is almost 10
years old. They're working back-to-back shifts on Christmas day to make
ends meet. One would think this a sad story.

In understanding what Christmas meant to my mother and father, one
has to understand the working Joe story they went through. Though my
siblings will remind me that I always had it way better than them, my
parents went from Christmas to Christmas with too little money. One
year, our tree consisted of a decommissioned artillery shell with
garland wrapped around it. "You become creative when you're poor," my
mother would always say. It is with this precedent that we developed a
particular distaste for the Christmas holiday. While we enjoyed
(almost) everything we got, our neighborhood looked at us like freaks.
How can people be happy with so little? It wouldn't be for many years I
would find that the definition of "so little" had a decidedly Western
spin to it.

When I was a teenager, and all of my siblings had moved out of the
house, my father made the most he had ever made in his life; something
like 25K a year. For the first time, it was at a job he loved--teaching
young soldiers how to fire cannons; to keep each other alive in the
battlefield. He would've been happy training soldiers until he was
dead...until he went to New Orleans. Somewhere between the Huge Ass
beers, the music, and the smile it put on his wife's face, a seed of
discontent was planted. I thoroughly believe that the somewhere along
the way one could find the signs of self-sabotage in that ol' man's
career. That city coaxed him with every visit, a gentle muse to the
symphony of his own destruction. My mother's heart was always there,
and each winter you could see her dream of that warm Mississippi breeze
carrying the jazz music to her expecting ears. As a young man--and into
my adulthood--I watched this show with a front row seat. No amount of
money could tempt them from this dream.

In the wake of Katrina, job loss and bankruptcy, they enacted their
dream. It was as if they'd gone back in time twenty years. My father
went ahead, secured a job doing whatever would pay the bills in a post
Katrina New Orleans. My mother stayed, tied up loose ends in the frigid
north, and left promises to stay in touch with those they'd known for
so many years. Us children were scared, concerned and curious. Was this
right? could they do it?

It has been almost two years now. She regularly plays cribbage with
an old World War two vet named George. Many of the street artists know
her by name--Miss Maria, in the delightful southern style. When my
father isn't defending the tourists from the lesser vagrants, he's
photographing the most beautiful sunrises on the Mississippi. They now
work at the same hotel--decent pay that doesn't tax them so much that
they can't come home and focus on their artwork. As I talked to her, it
was 80 degrees in New Orleans. It was 20 by me. Is there a material
item in the world that can replace that? "Its just another day," she
says, "I don't really care. I've won the lottery."

Part 3: Absolution

I haven't exactly circled the globe, but I've gone pretty far from
where I grew up. Though I was initially disappointed to not be spending
my Christmas in a Guatemalan jungle, the benefits of being back in
Wisconsin begin to rear their head. For the first time in at least six
years, my siblings and I are sitting still long enough to actually get
to know each other again. With any luck, we might even have the luxury
of getting sick of each other. Though I'm back where I started, it's
not the same place I left.

I bask in these simple luxuries that no worldwide trip could ever
give. Rooting for the home team; watching TV with the in-laws; a desk;
even small town banter takes on a certain charm. All my life I'd longed
to be some kind of hero, someone of significance and yet everywhere I
went, someone had already filled the role. How can I be of importance
to the world/Country/State/region, if I'm of no value to any community?

It's the middle of a horrendous snowstorm, and I'm shoveling. Across
the street, my neighbor is doing the same. My mind begins to wander
back to South Carolina. I remember sitting in the car, listening to the
radio, as a wiser man than myself espouses the teachings of Buddha.
"Before enlightenment, chop wood, haul water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, haul water." Like all things Buddha, it
is deceptively simple statement. It is the kind of knowledge you expect
to have dispensed by college professors and award winning authors. As I
shovel, my thoughts are broken by the sound of my neighbor.

"Boy it sure is coming down, ain't it?"

"Yeah, sure is"

There's a long pause. I begin to shovel again.

"Sure would be nice if it stopped," he says.

"Yeah."

"We'll pro'bly be out here again in an hour."

Another long pause.

"'Course, complainin' ain't gonna make it go away," my neighbor
dutifully goes back to shoveling. A smile spreads uncontrollably across
my face. I've never felt happier shoveling in my whole life.