The ice is melting fast on Rice Lake. At sunset, what was left of the ice near our house was riding the waves or packed up slush on the shoreline. When I was close to the water the sound of the ice on the waves crashing the ice on the shore was like a million bits of crystal chiming.

It was a short winter, a mild one, too. As someone who was thrilled to move here for the cold and the snow, there’s a bit of sadness to that. However, it is hard to be sad in early April when the weather is mild. The trees are budding, and the willow by the water hints of green. In one of the basswood trees, I saw wood ducks settling into the limbs. On the lake itself, I glimpsed one of the migratory ducks that pass through each Spring and Fall.

It’s about a month to the end of the semester. I’m behind in my US survey, a particular burden as I promise students that I will take foreign policy up to the present. There’s some really important and interesting stuff in the 1950s and 1960s that’s about to become road kill in order for me to fulfill that promise.

I can’t say this has been one of my better semesters teaching. My father’s death the week before classes began disorganized me as well as discombobulated me. In one or two classes, it took me until this past week to get a decent rhythm. My students have been quite decent and patient, but it’s still not fair to them.

Then that’s one of the oddities of teaching. Even in large classes it remains a human interaction, a set of relationships, and no matter how professional we try to be, the personal impinges on all sides. In fact, without some of the personal there’s a sterility, just as with too much of the personal there is a risk of wallowing.

“Summer is a coming in/Loud sings the coo coo.” And while there’s a shortage of coo coos in northwestern Wisconsin, I do hope to hear the loons soon.

Oscar Chamberlain - 4/12/2005

My thanks to you both.

The climate here is certainly a matter of the taste. I grew up in Texas, and before I moved here, I had never lived farther north than southern Indiana (which has magnificent Falls, by the way). I remember waiting in Texas for that first cold snap that ended summer--often duing the state fair in October. That cold snap finally took away the sweat. It also made my unairconditioned schools more tolerable.

I think my desire to move north began then, seeing a blue norther come and, storm or not, being thankful for the air it brought.

Van L. Hayhow - 4/12/2005

Yes, a very nice post. But if the ice is just now melting and this is a short and mild winter, I am very glad I do not live there.

Caleb McDaniel - 4/11/2005

This is a beautiful post. Thanks.