Here it is again, Spring will soon be sprung and I am so ready for it, with longer days, warm weather and hopefully adventures anew when it finally sees fit to arrive in my neck of the woods.
As I write this, a thousand plus miles away from most of the Dolphin Talk’s readership, you may be wondering why I’m so overjoyed at the prospect of Spring and it is because I am much colder ‘up here’ at the moment than you lovely people are ‘down there.’
Every year I write a weather love letter back to Texas except this year I may have written it too early as it seems Old Man Winter still had a few tricks up his sleeves. This Winter has been ‘great’ by Chicago area standards but even that means cold and snow and the days like the ones that arrived this week, where at times the wind chill has the temperatures as low as ten below zero and make me wish I was back in Port Lavaca.
As I sit here writing this it is currently seven degrees for a ‘high’ and soon two to four inches of snow will arrive. The extended forecast here in the Midwest says warmer weather will be here in less than a week, but right now I’m “Texas dreaming” on such a very cold Winter’s day.
Soon the trees and other plants will experience their reawakening, the early morning will be filled with sunshine rather than darkness and people will escape their homes again with hardly a regretful thought about the cabin fever that preceded it.
And I can feel like I finally moved away from the Arctic Circle for a few months as well.
Of course I may really be dreaming, as of the time of writing this it is not yet Valentine’s Day yet. However this year I really need to heat up the outside world, not my love life.
The other topic rambling around in my head this month is one that really will not fully manifest itself until much later in the year and that is the topic of the presidential elections. I am not going to spout forth with my personal political views but rather implore that anyone reading this to pay attention to the upcoming presidential race.
Regardless of which side of the multitude of issues you fall on and regardless if you’re for one party or the other, the political climate in this country has become more divided than ever and action needs to be taken. That action is taken by all of us being rapt and attentive to the upcoming election and also by actually going out, not only to vote, but also to speak your mind and support the ideals you back because no one is going to ever voice your opinions or your beliefs.
Only one person can do that.
Last month while browsing through my copy of Dolphin Talk I noticed another columnist here using the opportunity to share their views of the current state of political affairs and I loved seeing it. I may not agree with everything that was written but having the freedom to express your take on political matters openly is not something everyone in the world gets to experience so it’s always wonderful to see people being proactive in that regard.
It also is in my opinion a major part of the reason independent media exists and should be encouraged to grow. To make use of an old 19th century quote from a paper closer to my current location, The Chicago Sun-Times: “It is the newspapers’ duty to print the news and to raise hell.”
Now I am not suggesting that the words in this local paper will change the world but it is nice to see things being utilized like they should be and honestly you don’t have to change the masses to effect the world around you, just catch the muse of one mind or change your own in the process.
