Lemon

I realized the other day that everytime I have a lemon in my hand, something good is about to happen. Probably will involve ice tea, but not always. I love the sight of lemons, BAM! how bout some yellow to brighten up your day! I love the feel of lemons, firm and solid in the hand, always a perfect fit in my palm. I love the smell of lemons, pressing the skin up against my nose and breathing deep, the tangy smell when the Hot One is shaving peel, or the deep earth sweet smell when cutting into one, like you are standing over the draft of a mineshaft that goes way down into the Good Times Mine. I love the way that too much lemon is a bad thing, but just the right amount makes so many things perfect. I love the feel of squeezing a wedge of lemon into my tea, and then the way that whatever I eat next tastes like lemon cause I got it all over my fingers. I love the spent wedge, held up by ice, bleeding seeds all over the bottom of my glass. I once bet my dad $20 bucks he couldn't eat a lemon. I guess he likes lemons more than me.

Simple Pleasures: Redbird

It comes as grace, this flit of red amongst the green. An undeserved moment of beauty that reminds me of the One who sees me. No matter what is going on in my life, how down I am, the gift of the redbird never fails to lift my spirit. Everything falls away, and for those brief moments, it is just me, the bird, and the Maker.

Drawing by Heather Ward

My Favorite Stretch

Don't pay the ransom, I escaped! Thank you for coming back after such a long break.

"Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise." - Rich Mullins

The Greatest Song of All Time

The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is, in my opinion, the greatest song of all time. Much like the theme song to Chariots of Fire, it has been used in commercials, movies, and as the background music in various video montages, and yet its repetitive use has stolen none of its power. Clocking in at 25 minutes, it has time for two heart pounding climaxes, one at the midpoint and then the grand finale, either of which is powerful enough to induce cardiac arrest. Here is a small portion of the song with an eloquent intro from the conductor. Roughly 9 minutes long, this video is worth every second,(the singers enter at about the 5:25 mark).



An excerpt from An die Freude by Friedrich Schiller, 1785

"Joyously, as his suns speed
Through Heaven's glorious order,
Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.

Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell. "

The Tiny, Daily Joy Known as WSJ

The day we loaded up the moving van and headed north for Wisconsin, a friend dropped by with a bag full of old Wall Street Journals, two magazines, and six mini bottles of Scope. For those of you familiar with moving day and its well accepted practice of throwing away absolutely everything you can without getting caught by your wife and/or children, this would appear to be a gift headed straight for the garbage can. However my fellow addicts of the written word will understand why when there is no room for the little red wagon, the grill, and the patio furniture - there is still plenty of room for a bag containing two months worth of old newspapers.

I grew up reading The New York Times, The Asbury Park Press, and USA Today. I delivered the Press in the 7th and 8th grade and remember many a morning when I got out a little late because I got distracted from my duties assembling and rolling the paper by the contents contained within. I enjoyed all the aspects of being a paper boy - the tightly bound stack waiting to be cut open and assembled every morning at the end of the drive, the early mornings on deserted streets, the freedom of riding a bike through town, trying to set speed records for the entire route, meeting my friend Steve Dow in the places our routes overlapped, the heavy bag over my shoulder gradually getting lighter, and many a route spent contemplating the news of the day. It was a job so much fun I would have done it for free, and often did as I was much better at delivering papers than collecting fees. Later in life, while working as a porchboy at the Sea Bright Beach Club, I would collect and read discarded copies of the New York Times, and throughout all, avidly read USA Today which is worth it's price just for the half page color weather map that graces the back page of the news section and is very handy for planning hypothetical cross country trips. The newspaper, a little time in the morning, and a cup of coffee; although each are common and inexpensive, when combined, they make up one of the great luxuries that rivals anything modern life has to offer.

So, on to the Wall Street Journal which had been ignored by me, probably just like you, based on the false assumption that it is only for guys who worry about the negative effects of sub-prime lending on the housing market in the second quarter. I could not have been more wrong...think of the WSJ as a written version of NPR with a strong bias towards business related stories, and oh yeah, sweet illustratrions. The pen and ink dot portraits have a way of making everyone look warm and engaging, which of course only serves to make the story seem that much more interesting. Combine that with a great Op-Ed section, a global outlook and the added benefit of maybe learning something about sub-prime lending and you have got one seriously misunderstood paper.

For your reading pleasure, some highlights from the Spring of '07:

March 15th
Headline Reads: Their Duty Done, The Drowsy Dogs Can Doze Off Again Author: Ron Winslow

"For three decades, Stanford University researchers kept a colony of narcoleptic dogs to study the mysterious disorder that causes people to become excessively sleepy in the middle of daily activities.
When excited by a favorite treat or roughhousing with one another, the dogs- mainly Doberman pinschers and Labrador retrievers would suddenly crumple to the floor, limp as rag dolls"

The story goes on to explain that the pack of dogs which once numbered 80 is now down to just one as scientists have started studying the same disease in zebrafish "which are cheaper and more suited to genetics research."
As we read on we discover that one of the problems with keeping a pack of narcoleptic dogs is reproduction, discussed here by Lewanne Sharp, a researcher hired to work with the dogs. "It was a definite challenge trying to get two narcoleptic dogs to breed," she says. "When the male would get excited and mount the female, invariably he would fall asleep." Priceless.
I think my reaction to this story prompted Jen to say, "I haven't heard you laugh that hard in a long time.

March 30th
Headline Reads: To Make Lemons into Lemonade, Try 'Miracle Fruit'
Author: Joanna Slater

"Arlington, Va. - At a party here one recent Friday, Jacob Grier stood on a chair, pulled out a plastic bag full of small berries, and invited everyone to eat one apiece. 'Make sure it coats your tongue,' he said.
Mr. Grier's guests were about to go under the influence of miracle fruit, a slightly tart West African berry with a strange property: For about an hour after you eat it, everything sour tastes sweet.
Within minutes of consuming the berries, guests were devouring lime wedges as if they were candy. Straight lemon juice went down like lemonade, and goat cheese tasted as if it was "covered in powdered sugar," said one astonished partygoer. A rich stout beer seemed "like a milkshake," said another.
After languishing in obscurity since the 1970s, miracle fruit or Sysepalum dulcificum, is enjoying a small renaissance."
How have I never heard of this? (answer:FDA) The possibilities are endless. I could satisfy my sweet tooth while eating nothing but vegetables.

April 27th
Headline Reads: Twist of Fortune: Widow's Legacy Rivets Hong Kong
Authors: Geoffry A. Fowler and Jonathan Cheng

"Hong Kong- A family soap opera that has captivated Hong Kong for more than a decade has just gotten even more bizzare.
It already involved one of Asia's riches women, known for dressing in miniskirts and bobby socks with her hair in pigtails; her late, twice-kidnapped husband and his combative father; and a long trial featuring a surprise will. In the latest twist, the wealthy widow has died and a mysterious master of feng shui-the Chinese art that tried to harness good fortune through design and numerology-has emerged to challenge her charitable foundation for the multibillion dollar estate she left behind."

The moral of this story: don't pay the ransom. Twice kidnapped?!?! The first time it cost Ms. Wang 11 million, the second time she had to fork over 30 million and unfortunately but predictably it was all in vain as Mr. Wang never appeared for the inevitable 3rd kidnapping.

June 5th
Headline Reads: For Jordanians, Shotgun Weddings Can Be a Problem Author: Cam Simpson

"Madaba, Jordan-It's wedding season here. Florists are preparing bouqets bursting with white roses, lilies and irises. And in a noisy basement print shop, a 45-year-old German-made press pounds out thousands of invitations bearing entwined hearts and the message: Gunfire is forbidden.
The message is part of an unusual campoaign here in Jordan, where many people like to puncuate nupitals and other summer celebrations by aiming skyward and squeezing off a few rounds from assault rifles and handguns. Unfortunately, because of misfires and gravity, the tradition transforms some weddings into funeral processions.
"You have to wear a helmet if you are going to go to a Jordanian wedding," says Ali Zenat, who runs a small social-services agency here.
Mr. Zenat is on a mission. From his office with salmon-colored walls and torn vinyl love seats, the 38-year-old father of three is trying to get residents across the Madaba District to forgo their long local tradition of celebratory gunfire."
I love the detail of WSJ stories, comments like "salmon colored walls and torn vinyl love seats," take you in to the story and let you feel, taste, and smell it.

June 21
Headline Reads: The Rabbitslayer: Saving Rotterdam from the Varmints Subheading: A Man With a Gun, a Son, A Dog and 45 Ferrets Nabs Bunnies for the Busy Port.
Author: John W. Miller
"Rotterdam, Netherlands- Cees Noorlander, undisputed master of this port's vast open spaces, shoots intruders on sight. And he shoots to kill.
The official gamekeeper for Europe's busiest trading hub, Mr. Noorlander patrols the docklands in a tireless hunt for the varmints that could undermine global trade by tunneling under pipelines, rail tracks and levees that keep Europe's economy operating smoothly. As a container of Chinese goods rumbled by on a train early one morning recently, the 57-year-old Mr. Noorlander quickly shouldered his weaponand cut down his first rabbit of the day. "That's a small one," he said. "I'll feed it to my ferrets."
Later in the story Mr. Noorlander details some of the stresses his job involves, "You have to be careful about the place where you're shooting," Mr. Noorlander says. "Is there a pipeline, a railway, a car, a man on a bicycle?" He rarely misses, he says. He has never hit a tank or pipeline- or a man on a bicycle."
Later on the story comes to its detail soaked and commentary free conclusion on page A14 sandwiched between a story about Hillary Clinton's (who looks old but happy in the inkdot illustration) Fundraising efforts and a story about the internal strife between AIG's former chief executive and it's board of directors.
"He parked on a grassy strip in front of a network of a dozen holes atop an underground oil pipeline. The Kuwaiti refinery emitted a low hum. Nearby, traffic on the A15 highway was building with morning commuters. Mr. Noorlander pulled the two ferrets out of a wooden box and poured them down one of the holes.
'The Big One'
Three minutes later, a rabbit emerged. A loud boom from Mr. Noorlander's Browning rumbled across the flat land. The rabbit fell dead, its body peppered black with shot.
Shortly thereafter, a smaller rabbit jumped out of the hole. Mr. Noorlander held his fire. "I wait for the big one," he said. On cue, the big rabbit appeared. The hunter fired but succeeded only in wounding his quarry. Mr. Noorlander released Rex. Instincts blazing, the six-year-old bounded out of his cage toward his prey. His master guided him with hand signals.
Rex returned, rabbit in mouth. It was still alive. Mr. Noorlander finished the job with a clean karate chop."
The morbid aspects of this story are not what is interesting, it is the way in which they are delivered. I cannot get enough of the way they tell a story. To paraphrase Larry the Cable Guy, "now that's interesting...I don't care who you are...that's interesting."

Thank you Victor. And you dear reader, please support the kind of news that is delivered in a form that you can hold in your hands, smell, touch and fold as you linger over coffee. The newspaper business is struggling to stay afloat in this digital age. As we come to view information instantaneously delivered as a necessity, let us not forget the great luxury that is the newspaper.

A Few of My Favorite Things: Words

Before I begin this installment of my favorite things I'll give you another Helprin quote. This one from the story Ellis Island, is from the perspective of a young man immigrating to the United States from Europe. Shortly before the ship arrives in New York he is imagining what life will be like in his new home. "And, I thought that I would finally get to see the American Talking Chicken, who, it was believed in my village (why not?), possessed the mildly altruistic trait of sitting down with you just before he was to be cooked, to determine the best recipe. I imagine that such a conversation would be both candid and touching."

An incomplete list, constantly in flux:

1) Foxes. The fox is probably just about my favorite animal, but that's not why it's on the list, or maybe it is, (with words it is sometimes hard to tell), it's on the list because it is the key word in two of my favorite album titles - Catch For Us The Foxes by mewithoutyou and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case.
2) Lush. One of the hard workers, a word with three meanings. a.) Abundant, plentiful, thriving, productive. b.) Characterized by luxuriant vegetation. c.) Drunkard; alcoholic. I originally wrote this list in high school and as best as I can remember, this word is the only survivor from that original list. I remember the first time I heard someone referred to as a lush (alcoholic) and me, without knowing the meaning thinking, "I want to be a lush, I hope that someday someone describes me that way."
3) Abalone. Much like a woman's neck, this word brings to mind something elegant, slender, and strong. A feminine word. Again, may or may not be tied indirectly to the meaning, we'll never know. A great word, nonetheless.
4) Copse. If I ever hear this word used in a sentence, I'll probably be doing something fun, outdoors, standing in a field, looking off into the distance.
5) Erstwhile. Don't know what it means, don't even need to know right now, still really like it.
6) Oxen. Nice masculine word.
7) Chino. First saw this word in the J.Crew catalog as a teenager. Later on, I was doing some landscaping for a Wall Street hotshot in Jersey when I first heard it in a sentence. His wife was telling me the story about how their son's college party was raided by a SWAT team who had narrowly missed a large drug bust earlier in the night and were dejectedly riding back to the station when a neighbor called in to complain about noise from the party. So the cops busted up the party dressed in full on SWAT gear and swagger. Her quote was something like, "Can you imagine?! Just a couple of frat boys in chinos standing around drinking beer and the SWAT team swoops in!" I enjoyed the story and the word somehow came to represent the entire crazy image it conjured up in my mind. I have used it once in a sentence, felt good, I remember being surprised when it came out of my mouth (nearly animate) after sitting dormant for nearly a decade.
8) Savannah. Even if you did not know what this word meant, I think you would still like it for the sweet yet efficient way it just sort of rolls of your tongue.
9) Cudgel. Back in Kansas City, my old boss and I used to get the word of the day from dictionary.com or something like it. This was one of our words. It can be used as a noun or a verb and refers to a short, thick stick used as a weapon; club or a verb as in "I'll cudgel you!" Makes me think of cavemen and how they who (allegedly) used very few words, had a very fancy word to describe thier crude weapons. I also like the word because it reminds me of two guys without degrees, yet very much in love with learning, trying to better themselves and beat (cudgel) the system in the process.
10) Brogue. Much like copse, if I am ever in a position to hear this used in a sentence, I'll probably be in a pretty happy place.
11) Lavish. This one is definitely tied to the meaning, when used in the spiritual sense, God's attitude towards and treatment of us.
12) River. Probably on this list right now because of the Springsteen song. Whenever I see the word, I hear him singing it.
13) Verde. This word stands on its own strength and needs no comment from me.

AM Radio

Wonder is dead in our culture. With technology rushing ahead at breakneck speed, we have grown accustomed to yawning at things that would have knocked our socks off 100 years ago. Take flying for example, roughly half or more of the people in window seats don't even bother to look out the window anymore. Another example, and one I want to dwell on for a minute is the miracle of radio. It is a marvel that we can listen to the musings of a man speaking into a microphone a dozen or even hundreds of miles away. I tried explaining this to Calvin the other day. We were driving out to the lake and happened to pass the radio station we were listening to at that moment. His mouth hung wide open in a confused awe as he processed this new piece of information. I hope he stays that way, but the odds are stacked against him.

After the sun goes down it quits interfering with radio waves allowing them to travel hundreds and even thousands of miles away. This means that you can listen to a Yankees game on their flagship station while driving through Indiana or listen to a weather report from Toronto while sitting in your kitchen in Kansas City. In the age of satellite tv, the internet, and cell phones this is completely unremarkable and not even worth talking about. All of that information can be found countless other ways. And really how relevant is a traffic jam on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago when I'm driving on Interstate 10 in Texas 1,242 miles to the south? It is irrelevant, it is outdated, corny even; but man, is it fascinating.

I found this out years ago while driving from New Jersey to Texas with my dad. We were listening to our local radio statio out of New York City when we started and roughly eleven hours and 700 miles later we were still listening to it. Later in life I picked up that same radio station in the Virgin Islands. I really got into this during our years in Kansas City, as we had multiple late night runs from KC to northwestern Wisconsin to visit Jen's family. We had an older car with a dial on the radio (much better for this activity than the current digital tuners) and I found that fiddling with the dial, my ears on high alert as I sifted through the fog of static and squeals searching for distant voices, was a great way to stay awake through the night. The search is fun, (think audible treasure hunt) and the payoff when you actually find a far off station is well worth it. Hearing an argument over a neighborhood issue in the Garfield Heights section of Cleveland gives you a proper perspective by making the world seem bigger and smaller all at once. It appears bigger when you realize the world is full of billions of people and neighborhoods you'd never even considered who are passionate about places you didn't even know existed. Sometimes it's easy to forget that your issues are not the only issues, but eavesdropping on a local radio show in another state quickly reminds you of this. The world seems smaller when you realize that even though the specifics are different, we're all arguing about a lot of the same things.

Radio has been called the theater of the mind, a befitting description, especially when hearing weather reports from distant locales. I remember once listening to Monday Night Football on a station out of New Orleans as I drove through Iowa farmland on a still, cold late fall night. As I tried to keep warm and awake, the game was interupted every few minutes with a severe thunderstorm warning for the New Orleans area. Before long my mind was down on the bayou, racing around trying to batten down the hatches before the storm blew in. Driving home from Dallas here recently, I picked up news of a blizzard from a local station out of Denver. There is a difference between hearing "there was a blizzard in Denver" and "it's cold out there folks, we'll have wind and driving snow all night, please stay indoors and off the roads." The local ads, accents (find Boston and you've hit the jackpot), and worries all combine to take you far away, which at 2 am on the highway is where you want to be anyways. All it takes is a little patience, a high tolerance for static, and an old fashioned sense of wonder.

Cold Weather

Ahhh, finally cold weather has arrived in South Texas. Which is to say, that between midnight and eight a.m. it is somewhere in the low to mid fifties. It is not enough but we'll take what we can get. Since many of our fellow Texans have actually fled here from points North to escape the cold, our joy at it's brief visit puts us squarely in the minority. As a young man I was never too crazy about cold weather either but somewhere around age 19, I turned a corner, embraced the cold and have never looked back. And now like any kind person who has seen the light, I feel compelled to spread the word.

If you were asked to think of a type of weather that brings you to an ecstatic awareness of the world around you, you would most likely think of a spring day with the sun warming your skin as you walked through green fields with flowers blooming all around, or perhaps a dip in the cool blue sea to beat the summer heat. That's all good and great and I love those things too but I would like to propose that winter is every bit as sensual as the more popular spring and summer. This common knowledge to millions of happy Norwegians, Minnessotans, and Inuits, will comes as a surprise to many of my Southern friends as they have never experienced cold in it's rightful habitat. Cold weather when it descends this far South always comes as an intruder, an unwelcome visitor who disturbs the natural order of things and so I can't really blame them for the fear they display towards the cooler temps.

In Defense of a Frigid Day

Cold weather enhances almost to the point of exaggeration, the value of common things in our daily lives. Take coffee for example. During the summer coffee is a habit, something we drink because we have no choice. In the winter it is takes on this life sustaining quality. That first hot sip spreading warmth through your chest, the warmth of the mug in your hands, the steam rising off the surface and spreading across your face as you draw the cup closer to your face. Bliss. Sustenance. Strength. This luxurious moment brought to you courtesy of winter.

No matter what your feelings for it the rest of the year, your house on a cold winter's night takes on an almost Thomas Kincade like quality. More than a shelter from the elements, it becomes a sanctaury bathed in golden light, warm, full of loved ones and good food. And the bedding, oh thank you Jesus for our beds on a cold winter's night. How is it that someone in their mid thirties, having laid down to sleep in excess of 12,000 times in his or her life life can lay between flannel sheets, under a down comforter as if for the very first time?

Even breathing it's self is transformed. What is a subconcious reflex in warmer times becomes an act of subtle delight as each breath fills your lungs with cold air. Vigor! Breathing in winter is as refreshing as a glass of ice water is on a hot summer's day.

The key to enjoying winter is in dressing appropriately. It brings such a feeling of contentment to move about in sub freezing weather feeling the cold only on your face as your boots, gloves, hat and jacket surround you in a protective cocoon of warmth. And you look great too. Take the grumpiest person on a bad day, dress them in a parka with a wool hat and they appear downright huggable.

In the summer it is nearly impossible to cool off and any relief you find is predicated upon your moving and exerting as little energy as possible. In the winter the exact opposite is true, the more you move and exert the warmer you become. Say, you were chopping wood or playing offensive line for the Green Bay Packers on a 12 degree afternoon, it would be possible to generate enough heat that you could shed your coat and labor in a short sleeve shirt and the heat would still rise off your back and head in plumes of steam.

In his book"We Are Still Married", Garrison Keillor describes jump starting his neighbor's car on a morning when the thermometer was well below zero. I will leave with the following excerpt: "We finally get her started and then go into her kitchen for a cup of coffee-we say, 'Hooooo, it's a cold one out there. You hear the weather this morning? Cold out there. Terrible.' Except it's not terrible at all. You're a man who is phenomenally alive, your whole body, the nervous system and along the cortex and in the marrow of the bones, every part of the body has got the message: 'Heat. Let's go. Come on team. Little more H now. Let's have some more H.' There is no depression at twenty below... You venture out and every internal organ is up on it's feet doing the schottische, your skin is singing the Habanera."

The Station Agent

So, it's Friday night and you and your honey decide it's going to be an ice cream and movie night. She doesn't want you to go to the video store because she's afraid you'll come back with an Adam Sandler movie, you don't want her to go because you're afraid she'll come back with a ballroom dancing movie and you can't go together because well, for some crazy reason the kids get freaked out by all those videos that feature bloody women in lingerie on the cover. What to do? I have a suggestion, why not rent a movie about a midget who lives in an old, neglected, one room, former train depot in rural New Jersey?

The Best Movie Youve Never Heard Of

I can not tell you how many times I have walked into Blockbuster after a six week absence thinking, "surely one good movie has come out in the last six weeks", only to walk out half an hour later emptyhanded. It seems like they are only making two to three good movies a year anymore. Sometimes out of desperation Jen or I will take a chance on some unheard of movie that looks kind of different. There is no in between with these movies, they are either spectacular or spectacular flops. A lot of these movies are really different, lots of long pauses, extreme close-ups, fuzzy shots; random, inexplicable scenes, etc... You know what I mean, you've probably suffered through your fair share of them. The Station Agent is not one of these movies. There is an old saying that runs something like," don't be different to be different, be different to be better." The Station Agent is different and it is the best movie to come out in the last three years.

It is slow. There are frequent moments of silence or limited dialogue. There is a lot of cursing, and one of the film's major themes is pain. Have I convinced you to see it yet?

It is also full of hope, kindness, and love. It has some truly funny scenes that are all the funnier for the subtle ways in which they are delivered. The scenery is lush and rich, the dialogue rings true, the acting rings true, the silence rings true. All three of the main characters are extremely likable, loveable actually. The movie doesn't rely on gimmicks, plot twists, over explanation, or over acting. It just slowly unfolds in this wonderful, honest, understated drama that will leave you smiling at the end, full of love for your fellow man and your friend who recommended it to you.

A Few of My Favorite Things: Sounds

• The slap of a wooden screen door slamming shut, (preceded by the high pitched screee of the spring)
• An oscillating fan as it makes it's rounds
• The crunch of a gravel driveway under a car's tires
• The sound of a glass bottle being opened followed by the cap bouncing across the counter
• The roar and rythym of a freight train passing
• A lamp being turned on or off
• An oar moving through the water
• The beating wings of an otherwise silent bird, startled in the woods
• A coffee pot sucking up the last of the water as it brews coffee
  
• A lone hockey player's ice skates on the ice in an empty arena
• The sound a dishwasher makes when the water hits the front panel during the wash cycle and also the sound it makes when it switches cycles and begins draining the water into the sink
  
• The cry of seagulls
  
• The sound of the lever on the gas tank being flipped followed by the sound of the nozzle as it is inserted into your gas tank (especially satisfying when heard from inside the car on an exceptionally cold night)
  
• A church bell announcing the hour
  
• The sound of the oven door being opened and something being placed on the rack (especially when heard in surprise from another part of the house)
• The deep concussive bass of heavy surf pounding the beach
• An old wooden floor creaking as you walk or shift your weight
• A match being struck
  
• A canoe running up onto a gravel beach
• Zippers on a backpack being compulsively zipped opened and shut in the pre dawn darkness before a hike or an airline flight (this noise quietly announces, "despite the darkness, and my inability to speak this early in the morning, nothing has been overlooked or forgotten, ...we will succeed")
• The barely audible tisk tisk sound that falling snow makes when it hits your jacket