Then And Now: The Benjamin Smoke House

Album cover for the Opal Foxx Quartet. That is Benjamin on the right getting arrested at the legendary Atlanta 688 Club.

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This was originally published elsewhere on December 12, 2016.

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"I live in Cabbagetown. It's home of the go-karts and the little kids that go to jail really young whose parents all do inhalants and Dilaudin and they make the go-karts at my house for the all kids to terrorize the neighborhood so if you hear little engines then I'll try to remember to tell you that's what it is so you don't think I farted." - Robert Dickerson


Benjamin Smoke or Miss Opal Foxx was born Robert Dickerson. He died in 1999 the day after his 39th birthday from Hepatitis C. He was a singer and performer in Atlanta during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000 his life and music were introduced to a much broader audience through the documentary about him called Benjamin Smoke directed by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen.

His music, he was in several different bands, could be described any number of ways as southern queer influenced punk, or rock, or folk or maybe even a slice of the blues tossed in but however you label his music it was his own unique creation just as he was. My favorite songs of his are the languid Hank Aaron and the melancholy Heaven On A Popsicle Stick.

In the documentary, Cabbagetown played a central character second only to Benjamin. Cabbagetown was where Benjamin was living during most of the film until he eventually had to move for health reasons. Cohen and Sillen must have realized how unique the isolated old mill village on the edge of downtown Atlanta was and began to focus their lens on this special place and time. They spent much of the documentary capturing the scenes and people that were a part of that period of time in the neighborhood. A time that is long since gone along with much of that character.

Much of the film takes place in the dimly lit and eclectic cozy rooms of the house that Benjamin lived in. The house was divided into a duplex and it still is one today. The go-karts are gone and so is Benjamin but the house on Gaskill Street still stands. In Cabbagetown in Benjamin's time the neighborhood was a broken and seedy place but through time and gentrification houses now on the street he lived on regularly sell for $300 to $400K. Benjamin couldn't have afforded Cabbagetown today as a struggling artist.

Scene from the film in the 1990s.

This was the front of the house as seen in the 1990s from Gaskill Street.

Photo by me, April 2014.

The front of the house from Gaskill Street as it is today. The most obvious change is that the house has been painted from the light gray of the 1990s to a more blueish gray tone. The porch too has been repainted white and it appears to have a new roof on the porch since the film. The window on the side of the house has since been boarded up for some reason and there's a window air conditioning unit in one of the top windows but by and large the house is still the same. I should point out that the yellow house in the background was boarded up at the time of the filming. Now the house has been renovated and is a nice home. It just goes to show how much Cabbagetown has gentrified since the 1990s.

A scene from the film on the side of the house from the 1990s.

Photo by me, April 2014.

In the updated picture the guy would be standing on the sidewalk about where the smaller trashcan is located. You can see how the neighborhood has become more cleaned up with grass and trees planted between the sidewalk and the curb of the street, that also appears to be a new sidewalk. The house in the background across the street has changed colors and had lattice installed under the front porch. The poles on the left side of the sidewalk are gone and a fence has been installed in the backyard too.

A scene from the film in the 1990s.

That's Benjamin in a window on the rear side of the house.

Photo by me, April 2014.

That's the same window to the right of the door in the center of the photo that he was looking out.

Scene from the film in the 1990s.

The backyard of the house where a camper trailer was parked. Also in the film this is where the neighborhood kids would work on the go-karts.

Photo by me, April 2014.

Half of the backyard has been fenced in with chain link since Benjamin lived there. The camper trailer is gone and no go-karts or neighborhood kids were hanging out in the backyard. Structurally the house is still the same with the vent pipes coming up out of the addition that was tacked onto the back of the house before Benjamin lived there. The only remaining difference would be no screen doors on the back and new handrails that have been installed on the rear steps.

If you've seen the film you know that Benjamin left Cabbagetown for health reasons and moved into a managed building on Ponce de Leon Avenue - us locals call it just "Ponce." Today that building is known as Briarcliff Summit. The building which he described as "looking like a birthday cake on top" was his last home when he died in 1999.

If the history of Cabbagetown interests you I suggest checking out the photography of the late Oraien Catledge. He spent decades immersed in and capturing the people and places of Cabbagetown with his camera. He produced beautiful work.

The Miles Behind Me

The Chattahoochee River. Photo by me, March 2023.

 

The walks, the hikes, the mountains and miles – how much wonderful scenery I have seen in my lifetime. They've added up to some unknown number of miles since I was a boy walking in the woods of Paulding County, Georgia taking on Elsberry Mountain. I've hiked all over the southeast, some of the Ohio Valley, a little in Texas and some of the Grand Canyon, but not enough to brag about and Ontario, Canada.

I believe I have recently completed hiking all of the publicly accessible land along the Chattahoochee River from Lake Lanier to Atlanta. It took twenty years and I could've done it much sooner, but it was never a goal to accomplish or plan. It just happened and it crossed my mind as I was out in the woods having a good time over the weekend. Some sections of the river, I have hiked multiple times in the last two decades. I have yet to do a headwaters hike, but I hope to get to it. I have not done much Chattahoochee hiking for the past seven years, I have been walking and hiking elsewhere. So maybe I completed Lanier to Atlanta a long time ago, but it does not much matter. It was time well spent no matter the season.

Me at Jones Bridge. 2003.

 

The first time I hiked along the river was July of 2003 when I lived in Alpharetta. I was sitting at my house on an off day from the office and I wanted to go for a walk. I had easy access to the river from my house and the next thing I knew I was grabbing a backpack, a water bottle and I was out the door into the thick humidity and heat. 

 

That first day on the trails was at the Jones Bridge Unit. I was thirty years old.

 

Me many miles and years later. Photo March 2023.

I've solo hiked and taken in the miles with multiple people over the years. Some were better hikers than others, but the conversations were usually good ones and that matters more.

 

No need for a trail. Me.

Along the miles, sometimes there were no trails or it was too far from the river, so we improvised.

 

Me in the river. Photo 2007.

Sometimes we hopped rocks like a game of Frogger through traffic.

 

Me. March 2023. The remaining days of my forties.

 

Thank you to former President Jimmy Carter, The Georgia Conservancy and others for preserving the Chattahoochee. Without them, the river would have been turned into backyards of mansions from one end to the other.

It's much further down than it appears. Photo by me, June 2012.

Life is flying by as I turn fifty this week. Was it not only yesterday that I was skipping barefoot down a red dirt road as a little boy? No, no matter what the mind wants to trick me into believing, it was not yesterday. I am grateful to still be out there in the woods even if it means having to slather on the sunscreen, wear a hat and spray for bugs. I hope many miles remain to be walked, if I am lucky - I know the title of my next novel.

 

Finally, I never listen to music when I walk, except once on a long haul hike on the Appalachian Trail when I was just making miles and humping it to camp before sunset. I listened to the Fleet Foxes first album from 2008 on repeat because it seemed to blend with the nature around me. I ached, but it was a great memory. Tell me that is not the perfect hiking soundtrack? My favorites being Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, Meadowlarks, Ragged Wood and Blue Ridge Mountains.

Oddly enough, I have always considered James Taylor's Fire & Rain to be a hiking song. Those lyrics:

My body's aching and my time is at hand and I won't make it any other way.
Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you again.

Been walking my mind to an easy time, my back turned towards the sun.
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around.

I hope I see more of those sunny days that won't end. I hope I see some people again.

   

Something That Summer

Me at my last house in Paulding County in the early 2000s.

 

In 1999 I returned to live in Paulding County for the last time. I moved there for the privacy and I also missed home. I lived in an isolated house surrounded by trees in an area between New Georgia and Union. Though I worked in the city and most of my personal life centered around Atlanta, it was comforting to cross the Paulding County line and pull into my driveway. I had returned to my roots, though I was a much changed and different person. Paulding County had changed too, but the southern end of the county was no different than when I was younger. It still felt like Paulding County, there was even a dirt road across from my house.

For the first few months, my boyfriend of five years lived with me until we split up. We wanted different lives. It was the first time in my life I had lived alone and I relished it. 2000 was a great year, 2001 was better and 2002 began even better until something happened that summer. What happened upended my life and I had to make difficult, necessary and swift decisions to protect myself. It felt like I was back in the school system.

 

 

I am trying to keep private what happened in 2002 until I write about it in my next novel. It was a serious enough incident, followed by an escalated second incident that I involved the county sheriff's department and the head of the security at the broadcast network I was employed by at the time. On the advice of my employer, I stayed at a hotel for a period after and soon relocated while simultaneously paying for the property in Paulding County. 

 

Two realizations sunk in: I could never live in Paulding County again no matter what my heart wanted and I had to live a very careful life.

I can visit the cemetery where my mother and grandparents are buried, pass through Paulding County on my way some place else, maybe stop for gas or take a walk on the Silver Comet Trail, but I can never sleep there again.

There were many reminders to be careful leading up to what happened in 2002. Putting aside everything that happened growing up, I was attacked at a gas station in 1995, had a stalker/"fan" at one of the radio stations I worked at in Louisville which led to "the night of the Walrus" and the police believing I was being held hostage in the studio (funny in retrospect I suppose) and I was assaulted at the beginning of 1999 which precipitated my return to Paulding County hoping it would be more peaceful.

 

The world is a violent place as much as we may pretend it is not.

 

The network I worked for in the 2000s took security for those of us in television and radio very seriously. We had reserved parking at the front door, armed escorts if requested and special access restrooms inside the building to protect our privacy. There were additional measures too, including training classes on how to protect yourself and your privacy. Being a public person, even a minor one like myself, comes with added risks that most people will not fully understand. I pity those that are truly famous and have many layers of security between them and the public.

Since 2002 my life has been relatively calm, at least there have been no new physical attacks. Online threats or risks are now my primary concern - it is difficult to assess whether an online threat will mature into an in-person threat. There have been a couple of unfortunate incidents that happened since Dweller On The Boundary came out in 2020. Those were incidents that I put too much trust in giving out my very private phone number to former classmates from Paulding County. I learned that I cannot do that except with people that have earned my trust over an extended period of time. I accept the blame for being naive.

I acknowledge that given the subject matter I have written about, that it may attract a few unstable types among the better adjusted people. I take precautions by not sharing where I live, posting photos of the full exterior of my house, giving out names of some people, posting travel plans that align with the actual days or times and other measures that I will not elaborate. 

It is impossible to cover all of the bases and there will always be some risks unless you want to spend your life hiding away - a prospect I will not entertain. I know how dangerous some people from the past remain decades later. After the sixth episode of The Southern Extension, This Is Not A Game, I received a text message to my very private phone number that contained other very private personal information. In that episode I mentioned that some people on my Facebook are connected to one of the boys from Blackout Log. I also said that I had seen comments from them until I blocked them. Maybe I should not have divulged that information, social media has made the world uncomfortably small and people are too connected to all sorts of people that they really do not know.  The message was not an obvious threat, whoever sent it was not that dense, but it contained information that a stranger should not know.

 

Did someone want to play with fire?

 

I do not know for certain if this flare up originated from Facebook or not. If so, they really do not know how dangerous that fire can be and I am fully capable of extinguishing it. Deciding to be better safe than sorry, I axed The Southern Extension for this reason. The previously released episodes will remain online. I am sorry it had to be this way.

Weather Be Damned

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Photo by me, December 1985.

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This was originally published elsewhere on March 9, 2019. This is an updated and edited version.

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D

ecember of 1985 my parents and I were driving through the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and made periodic stops to admire the scenery and stretch our legs. The weather was cold and wet and it was not far from freezing as the rain drops were slow to fall like thick tears from the nude limbs of the trees. I spent so much time outdoors in this type of weather as a child either in Georgia or North Carolina or Tennessee that I thrived in it. Perhaps this is partly the reason why, besides being born in the wettest month in Georgia, I harbor a fondness for cold, foggy and rainy weather. Put me in a jacket, a wool sweater, thick socks and a pair of boots and I am ready to charge into the foulest and most miserable weather.

 
It was around this time that I became more interested in photography. I had my third camera by then, a point and shoot Kodak 35 mm, it was nothing terribly special as far as cameras go, but I bought it with my own money. My first camera was a Polaroid OneStep that I inherited from my parents and my second was a beautiful Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera given to me by an uncle. I liked taking pictures of everything around me except people. Most of my allowance in those years was spent on film and film developing. This was when the hobby of photography bit me hard and deep.

We were driving through Swain County, North Carolina on U.S. Highway 19/ U.S. 74 which parallels portions of the Nantahala River in the Nantahala National Forest. This was an area we had spent lots of time in during the latter half of the 1980s. We would sight-see, take walks, raft the Nantahala River a couple of times and sometimes just drive up for the day from Georgia to loaf in the North Carolina mountains. As a teenager in high school and in college in my early twenties, I returned here several times alone to think about life and make decisions.

The rugged landscape of western North Carolina on a topography map.

Coming back south, in December 1985, along the highway we stopped at a roadside picnic area, the Ferebee Memorial picnic area and launch site, next to the river. We stopped to look at the water and stretch our legs before heading home. In the cold and rain I snapped a few photos of the scenery.

This spot is at a bend in the Nantahala River wedged narrowly between two sharp ridges of mountains. One ridge ascends to 3,600 feet in elevation and the other ridge is more steep reaching to over 5,000 feet in elevation. These two ridges form the Nantahala Gorge and on the highest ridge is the Appalachian Trail as it runs from Georgia to Maine.

The Nantahala River in North Carolina. Photo be my, December 1985.

Of the two remaining photos from that moment, one is taken from the banks of the Nantahala River. I feel cold just looking at all those dark colors of the drenched terrain.

We were the only people around and the mountains were all ours. There were no houses around, no cars passing as the tourists had better places to be on a dreary December day. What I recall most from that moment was not the numbing cold but the heavy silence disturbed only by the sound of the river.

The Nantahala Gorge. Photo by me, December 1985.

I snapped one photo of a mountain towering over the hardwood trees in the foreground. I was probably thinking at the time that I would have loved to have been up there exploring the endless woods, weather be damned. It was difficult to keep me out of the woods as kid and had it been just me that day I would have wandered around more than I did. My parents were ready to travel on in the warmth of the car.

For twenty years I did not have most of the photos I shot as a child or teenager. When I left home in 1995, I left my photography at my childhood house in the care of my father. I should not use "care" because he would throw away much of what I shot or lose them in moving them between his various houses in three states. What I did manage to rescue from him in 2015 was found in a plastic storage bin in the top of his barn in Alabama. My photos had been exposed to the damaging elements to heat and moisture and many were stuck together or not salvageable. The negatives I had kept were gone too. Fortunately,  some were saved, perhaps a few hundred photos. Many were scratched or faded like the scar on my left wrist that is always hidden by my watch band.
 

My juvenile photography consisted mostly of landscapes. I seldom shot photos of people. There was a good reason that I did not often turn my camera on people. I remember saying to my mother that I did not like photographing people when she asked. I did not like photographing people because I would not have liked what I would have seen, such as the misery of my parents. The storms of my family were too miserable even for me to set to film.

 

I wish I had shot more photos of the people in my life then,  especially my friends and the people close to me. Photographs of the people that were a part of my secrets would be nice to see later in life, but if I had photographed them then maybe I would not have hid those secrets for so long.

It was not until some time in the 1990s that I began to enjoy photographing people along with nature. By the mid 90s, I was photographing cities. In the 2000s it was nightlife, nature, cities and people. After almost forty years of putting a camera to my eye and pressing a button to record a millisecond of time, I would give my mother a different answer if I could. I would answer that the storms were so significant that my mind could not forget what the camera did not see. Weather be damned.

Haralson Mill Covered Bridge

 

The Haralson Mill Covered Bridge. Photo by me, February 2023.

Though there is nothing historic about the Haralson Mill Covered Bridge, it does not mean that it is not a beautiful and scenic location worthy of a visit.

Approaching the bridge from the south. Photo by me, February 2023.

 

The later winter gray at Parker Lake. Photo by me, February 2023.

 

The bridge is located on Haralson Mill Road in a rural part of northern Rockdale County near the Walton and Gwinnett County lines just south of the Rosebud community and north of Conyers. The road winds through the woods and by open fields and is a pretty drive with a view of Parker Lake.

The lattice work of the bridge. Photo by me, February 2023.

 

The bridge is 150 feet long and 36 feet wide and has two lanes for vehicular traffic. It is also pedestrian accessible with a separated walking lane. It is a wood bridge built in 1997 resting on concrete piers faced in granite to give it a historical touch. The covered bridge crosses Big Haynes Creek as it empties into Parker Lake.

The trail for the parking area. Photo by me, February 2023.

The bridge through the woods. Photo by me, February 2023.

The woods along the trail. Photo by me, February 2023.

Parker Lake. Photo by me, February 2023.

Adjacent to the bridge is a short trail through the woods down to the water. 

 

Good old Woodsy Owl.

When I visited in late February of 2023, there were a dozen or so scattered beer cans left by the lake and in the water. Some selfish and lazy jerk or jerks with no respect for nature decided to have a party and leave a mess for the rest of us. I despise litterbugs. I grew up in the 1970s and 80s with Woodsy Owl teaching kids to, "give a hoot! Don't Pollute." He was omnipresent in our lives as kids then and it stuck with me since. In  modern society, with more advanced technology, very different lifestyles and educational systems, a character like Woodsy Owl probably has little chance of making an impact on today's youth.

Photo by me, February 2023.

Just before the bridge, approaching from the south, and across from an old farmhouse is this curious wooden structure. It looks to have been a general store or maybe a school house at one time; perhaps it was even a house. I suspect this building is not original to the area and was moved to that spot. The stone work around it is not old and has a modern drain cut out in the front. The building combined with the gray weather and isolated location made it feel rather spooky on the day I visited - I enjoyed that.

Go Get Lost

February 2023. Photo by me.

The transition in late winter to spring during February is one of the best times in Georgia to get out into nature. The temperatures are mild on the sunny afternoons before the rains of March set in to drench the red clay soil and pines.

I walk and hike year-round. Over two days this week I walked just over twelve miles warming my winter chilled bones. The act of walking in the woods called to me like the melody of a favorite song. It is rarely too cold, hot or humid to keep me out of the trees. Even during all those years of living in the city, I still sought out the woods to climb mountains or sleep in a tent. I am a son of the country.

The wooded hills of Georgia. February 2023. Photo by me.

A dense pine thicket. February 2023. Photo by me.

Presently living in an area that I am largely unfamiliar, despite growing up in Georgia, means that I sometimes get lost. I take wrong turns, stray from the marked paths and try to find the familiar in the unfamiliar until I find my way or a way. Getting lost is not bad, I see it as a challenge to keep the gears of the mind turning with some fun problem-solving. My internal compass is still orienting itself to which way is north here and GPS would take the fun out of it. The detours are one of the aspects of life that keep it interesting.

The ruins of an 1800s mill that was active until the 1950s. Photo by me. February 2023.

 

Across Georgia there are plenty of mills or the stone ruins of them from the 1800s. If a creek or river was big enough then there was likely a family-run mill and possibly a moonshine still or two along it at one time. This is why there are so many roads and subdivisions with the word mill in their names. Those names are quaint nods to the history of an area that still may or may not exist somewhere in the woods. Today some of those mills and the land around them are preserved in county, state and federal park lands for us to admire and enjoy.

 

Shoals of a stream. Photo by me. February 2023.

Shoals of a stream. Photo by me. February 2023.

 

In the woods where I grew up there were no mill ruins. There were plenty of moonshine stills that were active until the 1970s, the remains of a mountain fire tower and rotting barns. Mills did exist in Paulding County such as nearby Pickett's Mill that was the location of an American Civil War battle. My piece of Paulding County was hills, small creeks and the large old farm that my grandparents owned.

My house today, elsewhere in Georgia, sits on what was part of a plantation that was split into smaller farms. This hill remained farmland into the 1990s and a barn once sat on part of my property. What remains of the plantation and farm is the nearby plantation house and the river. There are several mills preserved where I live and not all of history has been plowed under in the name of progress.

Photo by me. February 2023.

Photo by me. February 2023.

When contemporary life seems too much, I do what appeals to me and that is going for a walk or listening to music or reading. It is how I connect to what is at my core and resets me for daily life. As I wrote in Uncivil X, walking is how I air out my thoughts.

My suggestion for anyone is go get lost sometimes no matter how. You might find yourself or the familiar among the unfamiliar.

 

The Last Walk of 2022

 

It was likely the last walk of the year on Thursday and the weather was ideal. Temperatures were in the lower sixties and the sun hung brightly with a couple hours of daylight left. North Georgia thawed after several days of cold with the lowest temperature of the period recorded at my house of seven degrees. There was a night of snow flurries earlier in the week and you could not have asked for finer weather over Christmas, if you like cold.

Ice covers a swamp. Photo by me. December 2022.

Many of the creeks, ponds and swamps in the shaded areas of the wooded ridges remained iced over. It was a cold snap to remember. Winter walks are the best walks of that I am certain.

Photo by me. December 2022.

Photo by me. December 2022.

Several deer were spotted roaming and foraging along the creeks and trails.

Photo by me. December 2022.

 

Photo by me. December 2022.

Photo by me. December 2022.

 

The geese landed as the day faded from afternoon to evening. 

I had plenty on my mind and I walked six miles over the hills and through the shadows of early winter. I wonder what readers thought of Uncivil X, I thought about the next novel and when it takes place and I thought about a project that I really would like to tackle, but I was uncertain if there would be any interest in it. My mind filled with hesitancy and uncertainty as 2022 ends. It was a long year and I put in a lot of work that I am unsure of and there was plenty of frustration at times. Futility seemed to sit on my shoulders, but better that than complacency and cowardice.

December 2022.

Onward to 2023. I hope it to be less frustrating and containing more happiness, patience and better conversations.

Thank you for reading.

The Christmas of 1983

My family in 1983 at a Christmas party on my mother's side of the family held before the cold arrived. I'm wearing a Levi Garrett hat that a certain “bird” gave me. We were good at pretending for the cameras.

The cold outbreak this Christmas is eerily similar to the one during Christmas 1983 when I was ten years old. It is near certain 1983 will remain colder than the Christmas of 2022. We survived then without the fear mongering and media hype and we will survive again.

 

When the media misleads, hypes, uses hyperbole or blatantly lies then we end up with a populace that lives in fear, believes everything or believes nothing. The lack of trust that the media suffers is of their own doing for their fictions. Facts matter in news and weather reporting.

 

From the NOAA Library. The weather map for December 24, 1983.

The cold came on Christmas Eve in 1983 and I vividly remember it. The front passed through on the 24th with snow flurries, it was nothing more than car topping snow. The high in Dallas (Paulding County) National Weather Service Station was forty-once degrees and dropped steadily throughout the day to a low by midnight of thirteen degrees. 

 

My family was at the annual Vise Christmas party at my grandparents that evening and night. We went in my father's Cadillac, which was a diesel and the fuel had water in it. The fuel froze and it would not turn over from the frozen water so we walked home in the bitter cold. My father was irate and this messed up his plans for the holidays. He had to spend Christmas with his family, instead of doing what he had rather be doing.

 

From the NOAA Library. The weather map Christmas Day 1983.

On Christmas Day, it was colder as is the standard that the second day after a cold front is colder. Cold air is more dense and the molecules move at a slower rate than warm air. Also, as is standard on day two the wind relaxes allowing the atmosphere to stop mixing so the air molecules slow and cool. 

 

The high on Christmas day was sixteen degrees after a low of two degrees below zero. Our dogs, which were outside dogs, were brought into the house and stayed in our laundry room – so it was damn cold for that happen. My father still could not thaw out the Cadillac and fumed all day. He remained stuck with us. My house was on well water and the pump froze. My father thawed it with a hair dryer.

On December 26^th, the high again was sixteen degrees after a low of one below zero. For the first time ever, the creek behind our house froze solid. We jumped on it, slid across it, tried to bust it with rocks, sticks and a shovel, but no luck – that thing was concrete. I was a kid and had to find a way to enjoy the unique weather. My father remained stranded with us.

On December 27^th, the high was twenty-six degrees after a low of one below zero. The creek remained solid and even my father's temper could not thaw the Cadillac.

 

As with most severe cold outbreaks in The South, the cold can only sustain for two or three days before it warms. On December 28^th, the high climbed to thirty-six degrees after a low of twenty-three degrees. The warming brought a mixed bag of weather with sleet, snow and rain. It was mostly rain, over two inches in Dallas. My father sensed freedom from his family, had the Cadillac running by noon and was gone faster than you can say Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer.

It will be a cold Christmas and I am not complaining about that. However, this is not "once in a generation cold." As I write this, it is sunny and sixteen degrees outside Whisper Hall. The wind is howling with gusts near thirty miles per hour and the windchill is at times, two below zero. It is cold, but what can be done about it? You can stay warm indoors and read a book or you can embrace it and go out and live life.