It is -30° this morning, the sun won’t rise until 9:15 and it will set again at 5:00 P.M. But the days are getting longer — I need to keep reminding myself of that.

Twenty-five years ago I took a statistics course taught by a man originally from India. He told us how he and his family had arrived in Toronto one frosty January day and the rest of the family had turned to him and asked: “What kind of a country have you brought us to?”

“Look,” he said, ” we talked this over and over when we were back in India and we all agreed there would be a better future for us in Canada. Now we are here and we need to learn to like everything about this country.” Then he went out and bought winter clothing, skates and skis for himself and all the family.

I wish I could be more like that. But I know the command start on my car won’t work this morning and the garage door opener will take about five tries to get the door open all the way. So I will need to walk out to the garage, push that button five times, and put the key in the ignition to start the car (It is plugged in and will start without a problem, it’s just that the electronic circuitry in the command start relay doesn’t handle this cold very well.) Oh, the hardships of winter!

Maybe I’m getting too old to get much pleasure out of winter. But I know that winter is only for a season and before many months we’ll be enjoying 16 hours of sunlight.