Friday thoughts...

The blizzard comes to Indiana as a mini blizzard, as I understand it. Schools are delayed, the traffic crawling along on the interstates, and folks are digging out. Even though the snowfall was just a few inches, those winds carry it into the unknown corners of barns and houses and old wooden gates.

Matthew and Jonah will shovel for me after school. Hopefully they will return the shovel to its rightful place on the porch as, on occasion ,it is found a block or two away.

As for here on Ocracoke, the wind pounds upon the summer rockers still out on the pizer looking as if ghostly beings have taken control of my favorite summer reading spot. The ferries to Swan Quarter and Cedar Island are idly sitting in the harbor waiting for the wind to abate. The cedars and yaupons bend with each howl of the wind.

It is an interesting feeling to know that here we are on this fragile piece of sand with nary a way to get to the Mainland. Isolated, but not deserted. No, life continues on as school children go off to learn their sums, postal clerks and bank tellers break for lunch, and homes are full of conversation and warm fires.

It is a good place to be on a cold windy afternoon by the sea.