I had a very good conversation with number 3 son yesterday, who called to wish us a Merry Christmas. He was doing well and enjoying his white Christmas, well, for the most part he was. I was envious as he was discussing his snow early on in our conversation, but when he started telling me the reality of a heavy snow fall in his part of the world, I looked out my patio doors and noted the heavy sunshine covering all of our world, thinking about what he was saying, I quickly changed my mind. He mention that when he first bought his home there in Wisconsin that friends and neighbors spoke of his “long driveway” and he did not fully understand the meaning of those statements then and why they would even mention that aspect of his home……After the first snow, he fully understood. The snow makes the it’s initial deposit, which he shovels, then the snowplow runs and throws more snow into the driveway, which he shovels and then the following snows all season long, he shovels and every rerun of the snowplow, he shovels…..He did not say he was wanting to move back to sunny New Mexico, and he probably does not, but I did wonder about that. It can snow here overnight and a lot of times by sundown that day it’s all gone. I have lived here at this location for 20 years and have shoveled my driveway three or four times. I did not buy a snow shovel until about three years ago and I have used it a couple of times……Well, I feel for those of you who shovel their driveways many times a season and say a prayer that sunshine prevails in our part of the world….Bah, humbug to a white Christmas…..Pete Hester