MIGRATING

                                                          

Sometimes when you travel south during the winter-- while Minnesota is frozen over-- to a place that is a whole lot warmer, you start thinking to yourself, “Oh I could live here for sure, or at least until the sun gets back up in the sky where it belongs.” Life seems to be slipping you by as you age and you want to make each day count. Actually each minute count and yes the time between the minutes too and that’s hard to do when you’re walking to the mailbox in the winter, like a cross between a ruptured penguin and a scared turtle. You spend way too much time getting dressed to go outside and then undressing when you get back in. At night the north wind howling across the frozen lake and around the confines of your house is about as menacing as it gets. But I’m not so sure it’s just the cold that I hate, as much as the persistent clouds and short days that only add to the misery. There was a time when my life was filled with snowmobiles, skiing, ice fishing and answering fire calls in thirty below zero and I loved it. But something happened and I totally, wimped out. I won’t even go in the cold storage vegetable room, at Costco anymore, because the last time I was in there and stayed too long, I had to be treated for hypothermia.

I used to listen to my dad talk about the people he called sissy’s, like his rich sister, who went down south for the winter but then when I thought it through and wondered where his animosity was coming from-- what was dad going to say? It takes a few coins to go down south where its warm and dad could ill afford to go as far as Northern Iowa. So to save face, he just said with a shiver, “Waste of time and money.” Now I pride myself at being somewhat of a realist. I see things for what they are and not for what I want them to be or wish them to be or what someone else thinks they are.  When fall comes up here in the northland, the migration out of Crosslake isn’t just ducks and tweetie birds. It’s everyone who doesn’t have a good reason to stay. Even the bears and the skunks take to their dens, until this thing called winter blows over. If those critters had access to some wheels, and not just the ones that frequently run over them, they would be long gone too.

Now, for sure, there are some things you have to put up with down south, that your not used to and its not just surviving the trip down I-75. They---the Floridian natives-- see you as tourists the first time they see you down there and if you’ve been there more then once, then they see you as rich tourists, so everything is priced appropriately. You have to listen carefully as they talk kind of funny too. Kind of like they just wandered in off of some bayou. Pat and I went out to eat in a fish food place and the waitress asked me, “You all want some snapper.” I told her, “No I wanted fish, not turtle and Pat would order for herself.” I finally settled for a cheeseburger, which sounder something like a chess booger when she said it. No sense getting sarcastic with them though-- because despite the fact it’s been 150 years since the war—if you live north of the Mason Dixon line you’re still a damn Yankee down there and don’t you forget it. The only thing that makes it all right this time is-- you’re a damn Yankee with money. Here’s a friendly hint on how to remain inconspicuous down there. Buy a Florida tee shirt and don’t say ufda or yah-sure ya—betcha and if your going to the Crab Shack for supper, don’t ask for hot dish.