that time of year again

You gotchyer day people and you gotchyer night people. Oh, sure, daytime is great. Sunshine, warm air, blue skies, green trees. Lunch, a fine meal. Folks are hustling and bustling, jobs get done, houses get built. Kids play in the park, families walk around Lake Ella. Nothing wrong with daytime.

But I perk up as the colors fade out of the world and everything goes grey, black, and silver. Anything's possible at night. When I'm lacing up my boots and headed out the door into the moonlight, I might just get dinner and come home again. Or I might run into a crowd of freaky weirdos and get swept into the darkness, stumbling up my front steps later with the dawn behind me, adventure clinging to my clothes.

I know plenty of people who get depressed as the nights lengthen, who need special lamps and trips to sunnier climes to survive the winter. Not me, buddy. I need a hooded sweatshirt and ten dollars for beer. A knit cap for my shaved head and good friends to laugh in the shadows.

Two parades (pretty much) go past my house every year. The Springtime Parade celebrates all that sunshiny brightness, the blooming dogwoods, the chirping peeps, fresh cut grass. It happens at ten in the morning in April and my parade parties have grown increasingly baby-friendly and kid-filled. The Winter Parade, coming up in a month, glitters in cold darkness. It's an event of flames throwing ghosts against the walls and people banging rocks together to scare off the prowling predators. We drink, we eat seared meat, we cheer for the parade until it ends and then cheer for ourselves long into the night. I love this season!