The Little-House-On-The-Corner is in the "Snowmobile Capital of the World" and my work-week destination is the "Birthplace of the Snowmobile".
But even Northwoods-ers can only take snow and cold so long.
Then it happens.
We start to go a little shack-happy.
We start doing strange things.
Like eating our young.
(Actually, there's a little-known method that tells when there's been an exceptionally long winter in the past - the class size at high school graduation is small.
Very small.)
Finally, on Friday, Spring stumbled into the Northwoods.
I left work and it was 52 degrees. The 23-minute commute, with windows down, ended with 57 degrees.
Blue skies.
Sunshine.
Oldies radio.
Oh, mama.
I cruised down the main drag, now 61 degrees, moving casually with traffic, all of us 7-10 miles per hour under the speed limit.
The sidewalks had bare-chested boys riding bikes and groups of young mothers pushing strollers of kids. A few dogs were out walking their couples.
I hung a left to turn around and go back the other way.
Down the road less traveled.
On a side street, a mom was playing a game of catch with her two young boys. Actually more like "Mom-go-get-the-ball" as she jogged up into various neighbors' yards retrieving the throws.
I stopped a block later to let a caravan of young bicycling families cross the street.
Moms in front and dads in back, mounted on mountain bikes, wrangling a herd of helmeted, training-wheeled kids.
The car and I wheeled into the fast-food drive-up where I reverently got a 49-cent vanilla cone.
I'd been waiting to do that for six long, cold months.
Gliding across the street into the Railroad Depot/Historical Society parking lot, I settled in under the Rotary Club's blue fiberglass clock tower.
I sat there with the radio streaming the tunes from my youth, slowly eating the cone, avoiding brain freeze, just watching the budding and blossoming of our town after a long, dormant winter.
And I felt hope.
Hope that Spring would come -
and stay.
That the snow would leave.
That it would once again be warm.
Well, warm for us, anyway.
Hope.
The one thing that makes the cold tolerable.
And the night not so dark.
It's nice to have in both the seasonal and the eternal contexts.
And, of course, it's always needed for the upcoming Packer season.