Winter is Coming

Snow covered the back deck. It wasn't snowing at the time (the time was about 3 a.m. -- no, don't ask), so all that remained of a passing flurry was a light, even, undisturbed layer of pearly white snow reflecting an overcast city-lit sky. It looked like beach sand after the tide receded or sugar crystals sifted onto a floured surface. I thought of the verse from the Christmas carol, Silent Night, "Sleep in heavenly peace, slee-eep in heavenly peace..."

A week ago, I had spent a happy though short afternoon on the deck enjoying the last golden colors of a delightful autumn. Many of us commented to each other how nice the fall had been. Temperatures had been mild, colors were vivid and even the curmudgeonly oak leaves turned to deep burgundy rather than nut brown. Maybe, we rationalized, if we kept complimenting the fall, it would stay with us a little longer.

But as sure as All Souls Day follows All Hallows Eve, the midnight snow on the back deck forecast a change of season. As a native-born Wisconsinite, I understand we need the cold to prepare the land for the coming spring. I really do. Winter has a lot going for it: the holidays, snow skiing and ice fishing, snowmobiling, peppermint mocha, crackling fireplaces, and blue sky days dawning crisp and clear. All seasons are important in their place.

But what if, as in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones, a winter season lasts and lasts and lasts? What if it overstays its welcome like an unwelcome guest? Not just adding a few extra weeks of cold weather, like this year, but even more. New England poet Robert Frost, seventy-five years before Mr. Martin, wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice." A world encased in ice and snow is just as silent as one scorched by fire. Frost ends his poem saying that destruction by ice "would suffice."

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind winter as a visitor, but this year it seems a little too eager. Sure, the gardens and house are winter-ready, but now I hear that 6-12-inches of snow are expected tomorrow just north of the city and, later in the week, the forecast predicts highs only in the 20s and lows in the teens -- January temperatures and conditions about two months early. Rather than looking forward to winter, the premature forecast brings a feeling of dread, and, as I look out over the walls of my Winterfell kingdom of the north, I am not sure why.

Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin

"Who are our two Wisconsin senators?"

This question always stumps my class. Students answer with blank looks, shuffling feet, and checking the sky outside the classroom windows for contrails from an imperial galactic invasion. Keep in mind that these are adults I'm speaking of not fourth graders. Bright, intelligent, responsible adults with families and jobs draw a uniform blank stare when you ask them who represents them in the United States Senate. I have never had a class at any level who was able to name both. One senator perhaps, but not both.

Sad, very sad.

These students come to mind when I watch the biannual blitz to persuade people to vote on the first Tuesday in November. The founding fathers count on you, an earnest voice proclaims in public service announcements, an informed, dedicated citizenry, to wisely guide our representative democracy through your individual vote. Of course, the founding fathers were really counting on an informed, dedicated white male land-owning elite citizenry, but that's another column.

Cynical commentators say the 10-15 percent voting attendance by citizens shows the decline of American democracy. They say that vicious partisan battles have worn down the collective citizenry to such a point that most would rather not dirty their hands in this unpleasant business. Cynical commentators say that that the low-level interest in politics is a direct result of our unhappines with the antics we hear about in city hall, the Madison statehouse and Washington, D.C. Cynical commentators say we get the politicians we deserve through our indifference to the process. Perhaps the cynics are right.

Yet, perhaps they are not. George Eliot once said, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." Giving up is not American.

After my students fail the quiz about their senators, we talk about the series of unlikely events that led to the founding of this nation, to the extraordinary promise of the Declaration of Independence, to the first flawed treaty between the new states called the Articles of Confederation, and to our uniquely American expression of political compromise, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Students learn that our nation's history has not been an unbroken string of successes. Cynics of every generation have written this country off, but, somehow, what we agreed to in 1787 has survived and prospered.

Most of us do not have more than a back of the cereal box knowledge of the history of the United States. With discussion, and assignments, and projects, I hope to show my students how remarkable this country is and how the exercise of citizenship is not just a November obligation but a lifetime responsibility (I also hope that they pass the GED Social Studies test, but that is also another column).

Each year at about this time I remind the students to vote on Tuesday. I don't care who they vote for. That's not my job. I just want to remind them to get their butts to the polls while I show them how voting does matter. US history is full of such examples. Some of them do vote for the first time in many years. Others still don't. But, perhaps, I planted a seed of guilt that will grow to participation on a later Tuesday. I would consider that a success.

At the least, I hope these students remember who their two senators are.