“If it were a cold night in December, I might just snuggle up to you and force feed you an overheated cup of hot chocolate and we could have ourselves a Good Old-Fashioned Christmas.

In a Good Old-Fashioned Christmas, I would be reading you and your immediate family precious stories from an overly illustrated hardback with psychedelic colors so loud; they made the bald eagle extinct.

I remember that Christmas. My dog, Skippy, died that Christmas.

Funny how it sticks out like a thorn in my memory, ready to latch hold of any thread of thought that comes near enough to pinch.

A cold night in December is a ways away. It is, however, a September to Remember.”