Morning Thanks--the warmest warm

Gilson Bros. 1946*

I'm not sure exactly how cold it was yesterday, in the wake of a much ballyhooed storm that never quite lived up to its billing. I'm not sure how much snow we got either, although the land looked especially royal yesterday, in the storm's wake, billowing robes of ermine as far as you could see. How bad? How beautiful? 

In the season of "farch," nothing winterish is as grandiose as it seemed in early December. Early winter blizzards are always romantic. In March, no matter how gorgeous, they don't register similarly. 

A short walk from the truck to the gym requires wool layering to fight a fierce northwester blowing straight from somewhere abominable.

Which reminds me of Jim Daane, a man long, long gone from this cold world, a man who worked in the office of a factory run by Gilson Brothers, in Oostburg, Wisconsin. I don't remember much about him, although his son was my sister's age. If I ever heard him say a word, I don't remember the instance. I think of him as slightly stooped and ready with humor; but I may be wrong.

What I've never forgotten was something my dad claimed Jim Daane told him, long, long ago. On some cold winter morning, Jim Daane told Dad, "There's nothing quite as warm as getting back into bed with the wife." 

Dad loved that line. I suppose I remember it because of his joy, not only remembering it but knowing, first hand, the same joy himself on cold mornings. Just exactly how either of them could rediscover that warmth isn't clear all these years later. I don't think Gilson Bros. would have taken kindly to its workers taking advantage of the warmest of all warms and leaving the foundry to get there portion. I don't remember my dad suddenly showing up and running upstairs to get his batteries charged. 

But I think of the line often in the cold of winter myself. It comes back to me, second-hand of course, with my dad's co-signature. Thought of it this morning again, in fact, when I sat up in bed and told myself it was time for me to go downstairs.

It's dark outside my big window, dark and cold, although I believe the wind is negligible right now. What I know is this--the quicker I finish this up, the sooner I can catch a bit of that better-than-anything warmth so celebrated by a man I can identify by only one perfectly beloved line, an office guy at Gilson, a guy I never knew. 

What I know is that Jim Daane nailed it.

This morning's thanks is for that blessed warmth I'm about to rediscover. 

__________________ 

For the record, my dad is on the ground, second from right. Jim Daane is standing, far left, last row.