I Hate Winter...But It Won't Be Too Long....

(Looking out our back door - Winter 2009)

I don’t know about you – but I have had it with winter – it could go away tomorrow and I wouldn't miss it one bit. And, it’s not like we have had one of those brutal kick you in the ass Michigan winters either – you know the kind -- with temperatures so cold that your thoughts freeze and the snow drifts way past your naughty bits. To be honest with you – it’s been a pretty mild winter – it’s just that we have had enough of it already.

Let’s be honest – winter weather sucks. I also know that there are lots of people who cherish a hearty Michigan winter so that they can take to the slopes and ski – I’m not one of them. I never was and never will be one of them.. Skiing is something that I have never understood. What’s fun about strapping putting pieces of wood or fiberglass to the bottom of your feet so that you can go sliding down the side of a ski slope? If you like going down a ski slope – cut out the middle man and just do a belly flop and do it naturally. Plus, skiing is not one of the safest things that you can do either, and if you need proof, I have but two words for you: Sonny Bono.

Winter has no social redeeming values going for it. With winter – you get snow (and depending on where you live -- and lots of it). Snow requires you to shovel it so that you can get from point A to point B. If you live in the country like I do, not only do you shovel, but you have to pay someone to plow your driveway. Plus, winter weather provides you with another item that you can add to your “something you have to do” list – and that’s brush the snow and scraping your car windows. I hate waiting for my windows to defrost in the winter about as much as I hate sitting in my car and waiting at a train crossing or, better yet, waiting for the Military Street drawbridge in Port Huron to go down.

There’s something else – other than the cold, the wind and the snow – that is irritating about winter and that’s the local TV weather team. Yup – there’s nothing like watching a TV weather team go into a full attack mode when a ugly winter storm front comes barreling through your town. They’re outside standing in they’re “weather patio” with the big fur-lined coat with the station’s logo over the left breast measuring the downfall with a yard stick; or they have enlisted every member of the station’s news team to do live shots in front of every busy intersection in the viewing area. The TV coverage during a major storm makes you feel like the end of the world is coming when all it really should be doing is telling us when the storm is coming, when it’s here, how much snow are we going to get and when is it going to end. We don’t need wall-to-wall coverage – because believe it or not – there is other news happening other than a god-damn storm.

So, here I sit and bitch about winter. There’s nothing I can do about it except to wait for spring and warmer weather. In the meantime, I’ll join that growing list of people like my friends Jason and Paul at Radio First in Port Huron and my step-mother Helen in Zeyphrhills, Florida who hate winter just as much as I do and are counting down the days to the start of Tiger spring training in Lakeland.

I can hear the music playing in my head as I speak:

We’re all behind our baseball team…

Go get ‘em Tigers.

World series bound and picking up steam…

Go get ‘em Tiger.

They’ll be joy in Tiger-town

We’ll sing you a song

When the Bengals bring the pendant home --

Where it belongs…

We’re all behind our baseball team…

Go get ‘em,,,

Detroit Tigers…

Go get ‘em Tigers…

(Roar)