Opinion

I recently went on a date with my six-year-old daughter. It was an elegant affair. She wore a gown. I donned a suit. My daughter kept referring to the event as “the ball,” though technically it’s a Father Daughter Dance. Elaborate chandelier, ornate sconces and superfluous fleur-de-lis decorated the country club ballroom. A DJ spun an array of danceable, kid-friendly tunes. Yes, it was mostly Taylor Swift.

Is there anyone out there that hasn’t had difficulties adjusting to the temperature extremes we have been experiencing? Finding enough warm clothes to put on for even a short walk outside when the temperature with the wind chill is in the -40s. And just a few days later we get +50s. And if we are having troubles what about the plants and animals? And, face it, it is too early for 50 degrees is normal.

I recently read about a new museum opening in Brainerd that celebrates all things pop culture. The museum features a variety of rooms that center on various interests, including rooms that have fully functioning gaming consoles from throughout the years, where visitors can actually sit down and enjoy a round of Pac Man, or a round of Oregon Trail on an old green and black screen PC.

Why do we stay in this area when it is so horribly cold? When I went to walk the dog this morning it was -35 with the wind chill. And then the dog would not cooperate and just hurry up and do his business so we could get back to the house. No. We walked 4 blocks and still nothing. Even with all the layers that I had on, it was dreadfully cold. I have been careful to cover most of my face so I haven’t had any frostbite. When I’m outside, I move pretty quickly. According to the meteorologists we will begin to slowly warm up so that by Friday we may actually get into single digits above zero.

I seldom invite friends to come to church with me and, after Sunday’s morning service that was so deeply moving, I don’t know why. If you knew a great bakery, you’d tell people. If you read a great book, you wouldn’t keep it a secret. But off I truck to the West Side of Manhattan and in the big door past the greeters, drop my two cents in the offering plate, head altarward, stop at my pew, genuflect and bow, and take my seat.

Last weekend, my first born child returned from a deployment overseas, arriving from a warm, sandy place to upstate New York, only to be greeted with a large amount of snow, and very cold temperatures. It’s strange to be grateful for cold weather and snow, but he was.

While it’s very hard to convince the blind of the fact, the importance of visual art in this life cannot be overstated. Visual art is as limitless as the human imagination, seen with the eyes but felt in the bones, speaks to the mind but beats with a heart. Some say the visual art of Mark Rothko were made for the soul.

Las Vegas, Nevada. The Little White Wedding Chapel. Rob waits in his car in the drive-thru. The driver of the convertible ahead of him honks several times, excited, joyous. The couple shares a kiss, takes a handful of selfies, pops open a bottle of champagne, and drives off.

I’ve just finished a ten-day solo tour down South as the World’s Oldest Stand-Up and it was a major adventure for an old guy with memory issues who keeps forgetting the word “cognitive” and other words of a similar sort, walking onstage every night to do ninety minutes or more freestyle in front of a big crowd, most of whom probably voted the wrong way last November, and make them laugh a lot.