The live weather map radar shows that winter Storm Nika is like a oscilating ribbon of snow coming right at us, soon to be blanketing the Midwest in 8-10 inches of snow. It’s expected to hit us after rush hour tonight, and the boys already have their “Blizzard Bags” of homework that the teachers passed out on Monday. (Blizzard Bags — a new term for children of this age, in this time. Homework for when you are out of the state-allotted number of calamity days.)
This is even too much for me — me — the one who prefers not to leave the house, to stay home nesting all the time. I am crying “uncle” for winter to be over…
So, in desperation, I turned my thoughts to last summer’s backlog of stories that didn’t get written from last summer, because there was no time. This is what we need… to see that sun shinning, and to imagine what it must feel like to have our legs exposed, and in those ripples underneath that heavy, ominous ice.
If you are very observant, you may notice that there is something missing in each of the pictures of the boys wakeboardingd, barefooting and tubing at the lake. Fun Size is not there. He is never there. He doesn’t like to go “fast,” and prefers to walk the beach looking for turtles and frogs.
And we leave him alone about that. To each his own. Until one day last summer. He suggested that perhaps, if we were so inclined, would we want to offer him a token of some kind, if he actually let us pull him behind the boat in some fashion or other.
I jumped at the chance. His wished for some outrageously priced dominoes that had to be imported from Argentina, (No, Ebay did not have them), to add to his collection.
So, if you can picture water right about where these two men are ice fishing, 
that’s about the spot where these events unfolded, on a much warmer day.
(Flashback… this is what that spot looks like now…
That day, Fun Size tried wake surfing; but he was too small. So, he tried knee-boarding. 
And, this little “natural” in the water, had no trouble at all getting up.. and although he pretended to be in complete agony as we took him around the lake, I think you can see a couple of grins that he could not contain as he floated across the water. 
And, he’s never done it since that day…