THE HAPPIER FOR IT

These are the trees outside the front door at the cabin at Pottersville. It's hard to see the snow outlining the branches from below.

I had never seen an ice fishing hut before. On one lake, there were several of these, plus giant pick-up trucks driving around. And, it looked to me like the ice was pretty thin some places.

This is Cooder, basking in the afternoon sun, glad that I am home. I did not give Miep short shrift; she doesn't like her photo taken and rarely stays still.

The train I caught had started in Buffalo at 4:45am. It was quite crowded, lots of teenagers and families with children taking the week off. The fella sitting next to me on the train from Albany felt the need to chat with me. He shared that he was a roadie for the circus, on his way to Sarasota and an 11-month tour of the United States. He told me he had been working with the circus for so long, since 1982?, that circus folks were lots more comfortable and sane than the outsiders. I observed that perhaps they had found their niche and were the happier for it.