The cold will be with us for a while, not unexpectedly. It is winter after all. I wore a fleece top out yesterday, as close as I get to a winter coat. I always think of winter as the flannel and corduroy season. I even wear socks. Yesterday I donned my boots for the first time this winter and last winter.

When I lived in Ghana, I missed the fall the most, the colors, the crisp morning air and the flowers in the fall garden. I never missed summer. I was living a perpetual summer. I never missed winter either. I used to tell my students about snow. They couldn’t imagine snow. They thought seeing your own breath in the cold air was funny, but they could imagine that, thinking of it as smoke.

When I went traveled through South America and crossed the equator, I pass from summer to winter. The mornings were chilly, but the days never got that cold. I had a hoodie with me and only had to wear it a few times. I would guess that’s where my love for hoodies started. When I flew from Lima, Peru to Cusco, the plane flew over the Andes. I could see the shadow of the plane on the mountains. I could see snow.

When I was a kid, I enjoyed winter. I could ice skate or go sledding and if my world was snowless, I could ride my bike. I loved sliding on patches of ice. I’d run as fast as I could and skid on the ice hoping to go the whole way without falling.

When I was in high school, my friends Jimmy and Bobby and I would go tobogganing on the golf course. I remember one ride down one hill, the killer hill. We were undaunted by its name. Bobby steered. I was in the middle, and Jimmy pushed us off then got on behind me. The snow had a bit of ice so we whizzed down the hill. What we didn’t know was there a smaller hill, toward the bottom of the big hill. We hit that hill and went airborne. We lost contact with the sled for a bit. Jimmy fell backwards. Part of him was still on the sled. I was holding his legs. The rest of him was dragged behind the sled. We couldn’t stop the sled. It stopped itself. Poor Jimmy was in pain, his back. He needed help getting up and walking. We didn’t take another run. KiIler hill had lived up to its name.