How the Weather Grinch Stole Christmas

How the Weather Grinch Stole Christmas

I’m so glad someone is reading my BLOG this time. You may be the only one. Can’t say I blame the others. I mean, people who have time to read the mindless meanderings of a troubled mind like mine need to get a life.

I often advise my students with this admonition: “Try to be involved in your own life!”

That may sound like a joke. But you would be surprised how many people are caught up in the lives of celebrities, sports heroes, political bigwigs and so on. So anyway – I’m glad you are reading this at this time. I do not imply that you are a lifeless blob hibernating through the winter of 007

Which reminds me of why I am not loathe to leave New England right now. In Narnia it was forever winter and never Christmas. Well, this season it is forever Christmas and never winter. I mean—advent was weeks ago, Christmas has come and gone, and epiphany will soon be over, and we have had no snow whatsoever. That is disgusting! So I may as well fly off to the summertime just south of the equator in good old Kenya. Scott Theological College is my destination, where I am to teach a “block course” in philosophy. That means it is a between term two weeks where students take one course in triple time.

This is my seventh time doing this, starting in 1993. As you probably know, seven is a great number, biblically speaking. I will shape my course into seven lectures of seven hours each with exams having seven questions and a paper of 777 words. Yes—perfection is my goal!

OK. It’s now one hour before I leave—and we have had an inch of snow. Doesn’t really count for much. Ask any kid around here. Besides, why waste snow when it’s not a school day? “If snow means a day off….”

Except for me, the perfessor. Teaching online as I do, there has to be a major meltdown of infrastructure for me to get an extra day off. But then, I no longer chew my nails when December final exams come and a teacher prays for no snow because there’s only five days to get your fall grades in before Christmas.

Ooops! Here is Jim Herrick, with Helen and Zach, taking me to Logan before they head off to First Night in Beantown. Boston had the first First Night. Now they are all over the country! I wonder if I’ll be able to see the ice sculptures on the Boston Common when I take off tonight.

And do they have fireworks in Nova Scotia? My only hope of seeing them from aloft. I will meet the New Year half-way across the Atlantic.

See ya…….

LATER. 40 minutes to Logan – no traffic to speak of. Jim & Zack wave goodbye. Every time I am left at Logan’s curb my mind zips instantly to “have I left something crucial behind?” No – I have my passport, my ticket (just some paper I printed out at home saying I have electronic tickets. Not too reassuring to a guy who grew up on those stiff cards with zillions of codes all over them that you had to go to grad school to decipher.

Anyway, I struggle (a big bag and a box to check, plus a bulging carryon and a laptop) to the ticket counter. Seems like I was in the zigzag line quite a while. But a glance at my watch tells me it is barely 6 pm and I am next in the check-in queue. Big bag is 61.5 lbs; box is 24 lbs. All the bags move on conveyor belts, so the near-retirement lady checking my ticket doesn’t have to lift a thing! She tells me that sometime in February the weight limit drops from 70 lbs. to 50 lbs.

Next is the ex-ray machine. “Take laptops out of case and place in a grey bin. Have your passport and boarding pass ready. Place shoes, belts, and pocket items in a bin.” I’m clean. I’m happy. I didn’t even have to take off my glasses. (O, that’s right. I don’t wear glasses anymore. Got tired of them and I’m doing all right. Saving on lens cleaner, too. And blinking cleans your eye in snow and rain a lot quicker than a hand can clean glasses.) I MADE IT. Now I can relax. It’s too late to second-guess anything now. I have what I have—no turning back. Sort of like the Wise Men when they got to the edge of Syria. “The King’s going to get the gift I packed; we just passed the last Wal*Mart.” So Jim Jetstafson is safe in the arms of the airline industry for the next 20 hours.

So I pass the time until boarding by transferring all data from my 2006 date book to the 2007 edition. Five hours before the ball drops at Times Square and I’m already to good to go. I’ll just sit here at the food court until boarding time. I hear the girls at the McDonald’s talking about when they get off and how they’ll shower and head out for the festivities.

Lord, I pray, keep us all in your care on this a most dangerous night of the year. May it be so for you and yours.