Patrick's Winter

We had our first significant snowfall of the winter this past weekend. As I was talking about it with me brother Patrick, he remarked on the one time we went the entire winter without shoveling snow. "It was the winter of 1982-1983," he explained. "We didn't get enough snow to shovel until the very first day of Spring."

Now, I have no reason at all to doubt him, and you shouldn't either. Patrick has the calendar down, uh, pat. He remembers things we wouldn't have the foggiest idea about. Over the years he's told me, not when my children were x years old (even I could do that) but when they hit milestones such as what I'll term millennial days. I recall him telling me when each of my kids were 1,000, 2,000, and even 3,000 days old. "Hey Marty," he'd call to me, "Charlie's 1,000 days old today."

You give him your birth date and he'll tell you without a pause the day of the week it was. Let's say you were born February 23, 1965. He would immediately say, "That was a Tuesday." Just like that.

So when Patrick says we didn't shovel snow at all during the Winter of 82-83, I believe him. For my money, we could use more winters like that.