We got another load of snow this past weekend and the temperature remained cold enough to keep it on the ground and streets. I was sitting in traffic behind an older pickup truck when I caught a faint hint of an engine running slightly rich and burning just a little oil, a scent uncommon to our age of electronically managed fuel mixtures and hardened metal engine blocks. For just a few moments I felt emotionally very connected to a time long ago when that scent was ever present on the cold weather roads. I distinctly remembered some of the feeling of leaving the house on a cold winter’s morning with that uncertain but unquestioned sense of who I was and where I might be going. Sitting there in traffic I wasn’t certain that I wanted to leave, but the light changed to green and I was compelled, willing or otherwise, to rejoin the transient touring of twenty-first century transportation types.

I just thought I might share that with you all, but even as I was typing I could hear a faint but distinguishable voice from the back of my head whispering, “Stop it, Frosty, you’re scaring the children.”

Sweet dreams. Look for me in the mist. I’ll be the one with the empty eyes whistling an almost familiar tune.