We weathered Winter Storm Fern pretty well, both at Wayfarer’s Refuge and in Green Country at large. We never lost power or water, though we kept the water running for about five days. In some areas, you’re fine just dripping the water, but here in Oklahoma, it seems you’re better off running a slow, steady stream, since the water lines are so shallow (we don’t really have a frost line down here).
Local schools were out Monday through Thursday. Diana said some of her kids were complaining about having to come back for one day before the weekend. She pointed out that the alternative was coming back on Monday and having to wait five whole days for the weekend.
The main roads were mostly clear by Tuesday, and even our little country road had melted off by Wednesday. Down here, street crews don’t use much salt after a snowstorm, and few cities actually plow their roads. Sure, the main drags get cleared, but in Muskogee, the main drags are mostly state roads, so ODOT takes care of those. The city picks up the slack on other roads, but the neighborhoods don’t get cleared, at least not by the city.
Temps are still a little cool; it hit 7° F/-13° C last night and we’re supposed to get a little snow Saturday night. But we’re supposed to hit 60° F/15° C by the middle of next week.
Looking for a Sports Podcast?
Middle Son likes to talk sports. Like, a lot. Diana and I have mentioned more than once that he should start a blog or a podcast or something. I even checked a couple of domains for him.
He’s got a couple of friends who have a podcast and they’ve dragged him into the show several times. Check out The Drunk Take on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. They bill it as “where hot takes meet cold drinks. Hosted by PuBLiKDrUnK and Gage the Yam Man, this isn’t your buttoned-up sports show — it’s raw, reckless, and a little buzzed. From NFL chaos and college football drama to NBA beefs, UFC knockouts, and the weirdest headlines in sports, nothing is off-limits.”
Writing
Did you catch my Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge post this past week? The topic was Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time. Next up is “Will You Watch the Super Bowl?”
Music
I came across a beautiful song I’d never heard before, thanks to the essay I talk about below. I’d searched for the song Shaw mentions by dropping the lyrics into DuckDuckGo, and didn’t find the song or hymn. But I did find “Going Home,” a Celtic tune from the soundtrack of Gods and Generals. I heard the version by Celtic Woman first, but Celtic Tenors also recorded it, and co-writer Mary Fahl recorded it for the movie soundtrack.
I think I like the Celtic Woman version the most, mainly because of the bagpipes.
“One Day, This Could Happen to You”
Another Jimmy Buffett reference. I’ll let you look it up with one hint. It’s from one of his live albums.
One of the Substacks I read comes from The Free Press. At least I think it’s still a Substack. I’m not sure. At any rate, I don’t read everything that comes from them, though I’ll skim the newsletter to see if anything looks interesting.
This one looked interesting.
Martin Shaw is a “mythographer”—a storyteller. That’s my feeble attempt to summarize his extensive bio. He’s much more than that, and his own story sounds fascinating. An author or editor of over a dozen books, Shaw’s most recent, Liturgies of the Wild, releases 3 February. Free Press published an excerpt from that book this week, titled, “Death Is Nothing to Be Feared.” (Archived here)
As I’ve written before, we’re all going to die. We’ll do just about anything to extend our time here, to beat death as long as we can. Shaw’s essay on death serves as a reminder that nobody gets out alive. I don’t know that I can condense the essay down to a few sentences. Suffice to say, I found it moving, and I’ll try to borrow a copy of the book as soon as I can.
It’s curious to me that the essay moved me so much. Shaw had previously written about his conversion (or maybe more correctly, his rededication) to Christianity, and I read that before I read the new article. I was prepared to discount his writing in general because I suspected bias. But I didn’t find that bias, at least not in this piece.
I’m trying very much to avoid becoming an anti-theist in my atheism. I felt it building, though, as I got ready to read the article, so I could tamp it down. I’ve got to work on that.
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