Of Icicles and Shorts

My parents had told me they would be finishing up at
their tennis league when we arrived, but they would leave the house unlocked.

As we entered the house, Asherel noticed icicles
lining the roof.
"Look!"she exclaimed in wonder.
It occurred to me that my southern daughter had never seen real icicles. All
She had seen were the fake ones on our Xmas tree and the lit up ones on our roof.
"That is frozen water," I explained,"And that is what happens to your blood when you walk outside this far north of the Mason Dixon line without your coat in winter."

I had been battling the whole trip to have her wear her coat. It must be some teenage thing, this not wearing coats in weather that makes the Ice Age seem balmy.

Then my parents bustled in the door. My dad was wearing shorts.
"Why are you wearing shorts?" I asked.
"We were playing tennis," he explained, as though the indoor facility had no changing room where he could don pants before driving home in weather which God created to annually wipe out harmful microbes and reduce the population of people who wear shorts in winter.

"My mother made me wear shorts year round til I graduated from elementary school," he continued.
It seems this was some upper-crust way of dressing children, though my grandmother had fallen on hard times and was no longer upper crust by the time my dad came along.
"I don't think she'd mind if you put on long pants now," I whispered.

It is good to be home with my wacky parents. God sends the ice that is lining the roof and the warmth of my parents' love that sheltered me so many seasons.

Job 37: 8-9

The animals take cover; they remain in their dens.

The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds.


-nothing is impossible with God