The New Year dawned on Miss Trixie and me in Texas with its usual fanfare for us to be healthy and safe.

I do have to say that although I have never been much of a fan of Texas, it's nice to be warm most of the winter and this one is no exception.

My father, Fast Freddy of Dodge City Wild West roots, is stuck up there in Kansas and today looking out at blizzard conditions -and it's not at the Dairy Queen.

High winds usually accompany those storms in the land of Oz and so it piles up in drifts high as the houses people hunker down in.

All the people there and across the northeast have already emptied the stores of bread and milk as that is "what you do" when a storm is lurking on the horizon.

I often wonder if the weatherman or woman has family in the food industry as their predictions now all seem to lean toward the severe side. Storms that used to not even draw much of a mention back when I was a kid where the buffalo roam, now are given names even before they materialize.

I can't recall how many "storms of the century" we have had in the last 10 years, but it's been enough to fill a bushel basket to overflowing. And while it is mathematically impossible to have more than one storm of the century several times each year, it sells bread and milk and gets us to watch the news in anticipation of huge storms.

It also seems like the news stations all seem to pick up on said "disasters in the making" and they multiply the tidings of impending disaster like Jesus did with the loaves and fishes.

There is probably a sermon in there somewhere, but I am too tired to extrapolate on that this morning. To which the congregation says, Amen.

So, it seems that we have become a nation of folks who enjoy a good story more than the truth most of the time. And we are less and less able to think for ourselves about pending weather events and leave all that predicting to people who never had to walk to school up hill, both ways in a hundred storms of the century.

Our parents went about their lives like nothing was going on unless it got too bad then they simply had the presence of mind to stay home and wait for it to pass.

And even if we were lucky enough to get a snow day which really did only occur once a century, we all headed outside to build snowmen, throw snowballs, and mainly stay out from under the foot of our mothers.

Of course, the reactions of people to these storms varied from north to south in this country as farther south, say in Texas, a skiff of snow or ice or even a heavy dew is their signal to hit the freeway and have wrecks untold.

So today as I wait for "the big one" to hit here once again, I see light rains now have replaced the prediction of impending doom. But even though it appears to be another false alarm, at least I have eggs, bread, and milk enough for the months ahead.

I’ll see you all next week after it passes.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV, or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.