McCanless column:I don't do winters

I’ve always tried to be an upbeat kind of individual, but let’s face it, I don’t do winters well at all. In fact, I don’t even like winter, but I don’t like to complain!

An email sent to me this morning told me a relative was leaving Chicago and its eight feet of snow and heading for Florida for the month of February. How I envy her. I don’t imagine there is anyplace that is ideal this time of year. My friend in Las Vegas phones and tells me it’s in the 40s out there. I always thought Las Vegas was warm year round; after all, isn’t there a desert out there? Another friend in California tells me how high the winds have been out there and says the crop on her orange trees is not what it used to be.

Amazingly, I have relatives or friends in nearly every state, and everybody is telling me the same thing this winter — high winds and cold air — and my good friends in England inform me they’ve had so much rain, people there are sprouting gills!

Weather is always one topic that will get a rise out of folks, no matter where they live. My brother is teased unmercifully about his winter weather in Wisconsin, which everyone and their dog knows is atrocious. Come May though, he’ll inform me that the ice is not as thick in the bay as it has been! Same thing for my cousins in Minnesota — all they do is shovel in the wintertime, which Diane says keeps them busy and off the streets.

Even pretty little Missouri can turn into misery in the cold of winter or heat of summer, and Wisconsin becomes Windsconsin during the colder months. And I’ve always heard that if you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait a minute!

Me? I like it warm and warmer. The spouse and I spent a year in Boston when he worked for the government, and they have their four seasons: winter, almost- over winter, early winter, and nearly winter!

All kidding aside, I am so glad to be living in a warm climate, and especially happy to be in a place like Salisbury, where there is so much to do during the colder months. But I gotta tell you, I have seen robins now for several weeks, and my yard has another jonquil to open up every day, so I’m thinking that spring can’t be far behind.

When we were courting, the mister and I loved to drive through Salisbury and look at the gardens. The profusion of azaleas and dogwood trees in bloom made the city park and environs look like a wonderland. I’m keeping that image in my mind as I endure these cold, rainy and bleak days of late winter as I try my best to appreciate every season of the year.

All those relatives and friends I have in Florida can expect a call from me any day now!

Jan McCanless lives in Salisbury.