I

Ice

For five years, I had a very nice Minnesota man-friend named Bob.  We sailed on Lake Harriet in warm and chilly weather; we went to France and Mexico together; he bought us matching bikes and we rode the Mission Trail when he was in San Antonio; we even took a tour of Georgia including my hometown Cochran where there was nothing much to see.

Once we drove to International Falls, the "icebox of the nation," to visit his sister.  Wearing his sister's thick real-winter clothes, I loved snowmobiling on the frozen lake--a throwback to my motorcycle days, just with ice instead of rocks underneath.  I was fascinated by the little fishing huts all over the lake from which men iced fished for the entire day.  One night we drove over the border into a town in Ontario and I learned about a sport called curling.

I think of Bob fondly, especially this time of year.  He was a wine aficionado and planted a single grape vine in my yard.  It's never produced a single grape, but it comes up stubbornly in the rosemary every year.