I’ve thought a lot about what my first post should be- probably thought too much.  I’ve started several different times only to backtrack and start again.  This one makes the final cut no matter what okay?

I was wondering today just how many of you out there are really happy with the way things are- at home, at work, at school, in your city or town, in your state, in the country, in the world…beyond.  That covers  most everything I would imagine.

Here in the Chicago area it is November 11 and we seem to be having an early snowstorm.  Wonder what that means- warming, cooling, end of the world soon perhaps?

Oh well.  It is gloomy outside and here I am feeling rather somber but not sad, pensive but not overly thoughtful, flat but not completely featureless.  It is November and it does snow here in November so maybe it’s just, um, normal.  Like you?  Like me?  Or are we mis-fitted to the place where we have come?  Perhaps maybe not so normal after all.  But is that bad or even all that unusual?

Did I mention that it is a Monday as well?

When I was younger things were a great deal different and days like this did not seem all that gloomy or gray- just, well, different. 

I remember having to deliver a whole big bag of heavy newspapers early in the morning on days like this, trying hard to keep them dry and trying hard to get the first few delivered in order to lighten the load on the handlebars.  And always having that one house or two where I would oh so carefully position my bike, with the heavy papers, while I ran swiftly but short-strided (wouldn’t want to slip!) up to the house or flat to place the paper where it would stay dry and be easy to retrieve.  That’s the kind of paper boy I was and the tips were good! 

But, invariably, as I ran to the front of the building I would hear the awful sound of my bike as it crashed to the ground and, more often than not, ejected several previously dry and freshly rolled papers from the bag and into the snow.  If it was a cold, dry snow there was still hope but, if warm and wet, well, what a mess.

Sounds like a real bummer huh?  Guess it was, then, but now?  Maybe not so bad so many years down the road.    I can still feel the cold, see the snow flying on those still-dark winter mornings, hear the crash of the bike as it gives way no matter how carefully positioned.  Just like it was yesterday or, maybe the day just before that.

So now it continues to snow as I listen to the somewhat melancholy “Everything Happens to Me” by Donald Byrd & Doug Watkins (ain’t Pandora just great?).  The day grows longer and I wonder how many of you out there are really happy with things.  Could be worse y’know- it could be, well, snowing.