The Columnist Manifesto

Our Lake, less than two blocks from our house, offers many disappointments. Polluted by lawn runoff and a nearby power plant, the lake is no longer safe for swimming. In the summer, it is crowded with weeds and green scummy algae blooms.

Yet it fights bravely on, finding ways to display its beauty. Every winter, it seems to give us something different. A couple of years, when it froze solid before the first snow, it became a vast, glassy skating rink on which you could skate for over a mile from one shore to the other. Little trapped snow bubbles in the ice gave the effect of a black-and-white lava lamp.

Years when lots of snow has fallen as the lake was freezing, we could get an open plain for cross country skiing, with houses and trees so far off you could pretend you were trekking across the Russian step in Doctor Zhivago.

This year it froze without snow, and then last weekend a soft blanket of three inches fell on it. You could brush the snow aside with your foot.





Winter has been mostly disappointingly warm this year, but for one glorious day, I had the experience of ice skating through fresh powder. I'll never forget that.