We picked up a few inches of snow during the overnight, enough to make everything look clean and wintry again. A squirrel is digging through the snow to get at the seed buried below. It was snowing lightly, but now a burst of heavily snow has come through. That's the forecast for the day. We're expecting 6-7", enough for Mike to plow and maybe even enough for the snowblower.

My father is looking forward to his visits with his doctor at the VA so he can talk about sailing. He learned during hs last visit that his doctor has a sailboat. It was a model he'd heard of, but didn't know well. His book of American boats, purchased in 1963, didn't have an entry for it. (A former boss of mine is an engineering manager at Amazon.com. I should send him a note, asking if he can explain why a search for a book about American Sailboats turns up American Psycho as the second choice.)

I learned something else yesterday. My grandfather didn't die of lung problems, as I'd thought, but from a stroke. Adam and Jennie are planning to run a marathon this summer as a fund-raiser for stroke research. They sent a letter to my father, who, in turn, is planning to dedicate his contribution to his father. My grandfather had fallen in the driveway and hit his head. He had one stroke early during his hospital stay and then a second fatal one a couple of days later.

So, I had things to think about when, as Sandra, Marley, and I walked in to the camp, I slipped on the ice on the road. I hit the back of my head and few other parts. (Doesn't gravity seem to be stronger these days?) The bump on the head seems to have done neither harm nor good. Today I'm just sore. Some muscles were stretched in lengths and directions out of the ordinary. Because of a new medication, I can't take Vitamin I (ibuprofen), but Tylenol seems to be working ok.

Sandra and I had a very nice afternoon, a chance to be unhurried and just pay attention to what the other was saying. We had the visit with my father, the walk to the camp where the wind had blown the ice clear of snow, a ride in the car where we could talk about Thoreau, a trip to a shopping mall where I picked up a 7-port USB hub and a wireless card for an old computer onto which I plan to install Linux, and a delightful early supper at a new Panera Bread that's opened in Leominster. The nerdy crowd is speaking fondly of Panera Bread because the chain is providing free wireless Internet access.

It's been said that suicide is the ultimate temper tantrum, our last and loudest scream at the world. G'bye Dr. Thompson. (There's some uncertainty about his 'doctorate'. Some sources say he has a Ph. D. in journalism or maybe sociology from an unnamed university. Others claim that his doctorate is from a mail-order church.) Thompson was one of the first people to recognize the strength of Jimmy Carter's campaign. He dreamed of becoming governor of American Samoa and, instead, became a cartoon character, Uncle Duke. We need folks like him to shout to us from the far edge of the wilderness.