Daryl and Thoreau Thoughts on Winter

But while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some northern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields. 

                                                                      ---Henry David Thoreau

It has been nearly 40 years since Daryl Hagemann sat in my sophomore English class.

After graduating from Sandpoint High School in 1983, Daryl joined the Navy and has truly seen the world.

When the opportunity for retirement came, Daryl came home.  We are all so lucky.


Yesterday after Bill and I took a drive to Clark Fork, Lightning Creek and the drift yard along HWY 200, we stopped where everyone should stop on gorgeous winter day:  the Old Ice House Pizzeria in Hope.

Pizzas there are delightful, and the view of the islands, the Green Monarchs and the main channel of Lake Pend Oreille is beyond awe.

We had been there a few minutes when a man with a beard walked through the door.

I had seen that beard and that man on Facebook many times but not in an upclose and personal fashion for about 37 years.

Twas Daryl, and, as I told him, the visit was truly gift on a day when pretty every image that met my eyes had been a gift.

We did a whole lot of catching up in those few minutes and agreed that we must do this again, only next time for longer.

So, Daryl, you topped off an already spectacular day, filled with endorphins and drop-dead winter beauty.

Today we have more light, fluffy snow.  Don't know what kind of eye candy it will bring, but we have been so fortunate the past few days to enjoy the idyllic side of winter.

I do know that at the end of this day 8 p.m. the ZAGS are playing, and I also know they'd better win.

Cuz when they play games AFTER my bed time and lose, Marianne doesn't sleep.

GO, ZAGS!!!

Now for some of yesterday's beauty which we saw with a little help from one of my favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau.

Hope you enjoy.  And, for Daryl, here's some more of that English-class stuff! 

We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. 

The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within.

There is nothing so sanative, so poetic, as a walk in the woods and fields even now, when I meet none abroad for pleasure. 

In the street and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. 

No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it, — dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!!

But alone in distant woods or fields, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine.

I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. 

I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill…. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter’s day, when the meadow mice come out by the wallsides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood?

The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place.

This subterranean fire has its altar in each man’s breast, for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveller cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth.

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.

There is the south. Thither have all birds and insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are gathered the robin and the lark.

                                                                         ---Henry David Thoreau