Frosty mornings

By Jacob Hatcher  

Community Columnist  

When most folks think of the south, they think of sweltering hot summer days with humidity so thick it makes walking seem like water aerobics. The south conjures up images of snakes slithering across a pond with bugs buzzing somewhere in the nearby tall grass. And they’re not far off. For the better part of the year, it feels like we’re little ants and someone is holding a magnifying glass between us and the sun. It’s hard to imagine a single one of Faulkner’s characters not drenched in sweat. But there’s nothing I love more than a frosty southern morning. Maybe it’s because I was born in December or maybe because the melody to Dixie is just a whistle away from me. Maybe it’s because I’m so hot natured, I’ll take any break from the heat I can get. There’s just something about the bare trees on a foggy morning just above freezing; something about the recently harvested cotton crops just feels restful. It’s the perfect time to pull out the Carhartt coat, slip on a good pair of boots, and just walk through what just a few weeks ago was underbrush as thick as your grandmother’s banana pudding. Mornings like this remind me of my uncle Jimmy’s beagles sniffing the ground, howling at the top of their lungs when they finally caught a rabbit’s scent. I can still hear him hollerin’, “Hunt ‘em up!” as the leaves crunch under my feet. I never have been much of a hunter, but on frosty mornings, I’d pay a pretty penny to be standing on the edge of a thicket waiting for a rabbit to come flying out from under the briars. If I was a coffee drinker, I’d sit on this porch and drink til I burst, but I’m not. And besides, this is the south; before long the suns going to get high enough in the sky to warm everything up and then it’ll be just another day in Dixie. Of course, from where I’m sitting, just another day in Dixie is a far sight better than an extraordinary day anywhere else.