Winter. Sorta - It's freezing

Winter. Sorta - It's freezing out. Thank God.

I've had this theory since I was a kid: People are best adapted to, and prefer, the weather they were first exposed to.

Example: I was born in the middle of winter. When my parents took me out of the hospital, it was 25 below, with a howling wind. I don't button my jacket if it's above ten degrees. But if it gets above 85 humid degrees, I'm a sodden mess.

My father was born in the summer of 1936 - the hottest in history. It was over 100 degrees in the house when he was born. He can shoot 200 holes of golf on a 90 degree day, have a cup of iced tea, and shoot 200 more, but if it gets below 40, he starts like a Fiat Spyder in a blizzard.

So I love winter. Oh, not commuting to Chanhassen through snow-sclerosed freeways full of morons who think signalling a rude imposition on their space. No, I'm talking about snow, the bite on your nose, the warm feeling you get cuddling up on the sofa as the cold outside makes the air itself crispy, the fuzzy well-being you get being in a warm car on a cold night.

There's a Norwegian saying: "There's no such thing as cold, just inadequate clothes".

All I know is, I get the opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think I feel better in the winter. Heat and mosquitos and humidity drag me down. Cold and snow and columns of white smoke in the darkness rejuvenate me enough that I can ignore the early sunsets.

Apropos not much.