By Justin Isherwood

I was sitting in the car waiting for my wife to finish a meeting in Madison. The lot over was a Christmas tree stand, this the second weekend before Christmas.

Originally I had decided to read a book while she was in the meeting, having brought along a heavy coat to wear as I didn’t want to just idle the car to keep myself warm. This a notorious habit of the 21st Century, to run a 2.5 liter engine at 750 rpm to the equal of 187.5 detonations per minute each, and 46,875.0 liters of oxygen per minute just to stay warm.

I don’t know how many liters of air a campfire uses, to suspect it is less than a four-cylinder Toyota idling in a parking lot to keep a dirtball farmer warm. In turn, explaining why I am wearing the same coat I choose when sitting outdoors on the porch watching the bird feeder. Same mittens. The car if oriented to the sun can do OK on a winter day. I found I could read without mittens, which is a nice thing. About here I noticed the activity and people around the Christmas tree lot.

It turned out to be most entertaining, to watch the natives of Madison city circulate among the trees, to quickly recognize the error of choosing a tree as a couple versus choosing one alone. Every tandem team easily took three times longer to choose a tree as one person sent on this vital mission. The day had turned a fairly balmy 20 degrees, when we left central Wisconsin at 2 below that morning.

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