Let me tell you up front that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with ice for my entire adolescent and adult life.  Ice is a truly magical substance that can assume, on its own or in our hands, an incredible variety of forms.  It can comfort, impress, threaten, enchant, overwhelm, inspire, deceive, inconvenience, delay and even kill is if we give it a chance.  Ice.  It can be so harmless, so tame, so much fun.  It doesn’t even look cold when we watch those graceful ice skaters go through their wonderful routines in “summer looking” clothes.  Ice.  Pretty little crystals that, for our pleasure, can cool a good glass of scotch and add something unexpectedly refreshing to the aroma. 

Then there’s the ice storm, most beautiful of all meteorological phenomena.  The queen of atmospheres, decorating every tree branch, every blade of grass with sparkling jewels.  And yet she will rob us of our light, our heat.  Plunge us into cold and dark and leave us to fight for our lives while she beams with twinkling indifference.  She can inspire the artist by adding mysterious qualities to an otherwise familiar scene.  She can humble the arrogant by robbing them of their footing and sending them crashing head over heels onto the seats of their pants.

When we hear her coming we scurry around to prepare for her arrival hoping we can stay indoors and out of her way until she passes.  She is the bane of drivers, mariners and aviators.  But she furnishes endless delights to the children who aren’t afraid of her and will accept her invitation to come out and play.  What a paradox.  What an inconvenience.  What a pleasure.

The forecasters warned us that a late March ice storm was en route to our community last weekend.  I had mixed feeling as I took precautions.  On one hand, I was hoping she wouldn’t do too much damage.  Then again, I wanted her to be--remarkable.  When she did not arrive, I experienced equal parts of relief and disappointment.  But even after the storm failed to materialize, the events of the week kept ice on my mind.

On Monday, we buried Evelyn, a great lady who died four months before her 100^th birthday.  Up to the last hours of her life, her mind was sharp and her concern for those around her was undiminished.  Not long before the end, I had the pleasure of a last conversation.  We exchanged some light hearted remarks and as I was leaving, I looked over my shoulder and she was laughing.  That’s how I’ll remember her.

Ice remained on my mind because of a quote from Douglas Macarthur.  Allow me to paraphrase.  You are as young as your faith, as young as your self-confidence.  So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young.  “When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and then only are you grown old.”  If this is true--and I believe it is, Evelyn died young and the ice was never able to keep a grip on her for long.

At least for this year, it looks like ice, in its more threatening forms, is behind us.  We can look forward to the pleasing sound ice makes in a glass of good scotch on a hot afternoon.  Evelyn was a decent church going woman and would probably frown on my regular enjoyment of high quality spirits (doctor’s orders--really).  But I plan to raise a glass in her honor at least once a year.  May I be fortunate enough to be as young as she was, no matter how old I am when I die.

So what does all this have to do with manliness?  I’ll put it to you.  What is the manliest thing that can be done on the ice?  Win a battle of course.  Defeat your nation’s enemies and become a national hero.  On April 5, 1242, Alexander Nevsky lured a heavily armored German army onto the thin ice of Lake Peipus and won a great victory in what is called The Battle of the Ice.  As a result, he is idolized by his countrymen and even achieved sainthood in the Eastern Orthodox Church.  Not bad for a twenty year old.  Oh, by the way, April 5 is the forty-fifth anniversary of the death of General Douglas Macarthur. 

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.

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