There are many ways to keep warm in winter

Some of us can never understand why so many young people put on summery clothes during the cold of winter. Former Daily Globe editor Ray Crippen broached the topic earlier this month in his delightful weekly column.
I am one of those who, until now, often went out into the cold underdressed. It wasn’t out of fashion sense. It was, instead, due to a lack of attention to detail. But now, in my middle age, I am paying more attention to detail.
Baby, it’s cold outside. At my age, freezing temperatures creep into the bones like never before. The cold is harder to shrug off these days. Shivering is easier.
Until now, I’d only pull on my long underwear on the coldest of winter days, just to shovel my driveway. But today I’m wearing my long underwear at work. It’s amazing how comfortable long underwear can be — even when there’s no snow to shovel.
Warmth is a thought that enters my brain more often than it used to, and it’s probably going to rest there until winter passes. Let’s see: It’s the middle of January. That means one more month of hard winter before we’ll get over the hump.
Warmth. It’s a beautiful word.
There are many ways to achieve warmth, of course, even indoors in winter. Last weekend, for instance, my wife Sandy and I spent part of Saturday at the home of my daughter Laura and her young family in Lakefield on the occasion of a sleepover. It was, of course, a madhouse with three young boys — Laura’s Tyson (age 4), and her sister Kari’s Jake (5) and Nixon (2). But before bedtime, Laura and her husband Nathan inserted a children’s movie in the DVD player and prepared a batch of popcorn.
So Tyson sat on Sandy’s lap while Nixon sat on mine, and Jake scooted up next to me on my right hip. Nixon is notorious for being a mama’s boy, but with mama away he stayed on my lap for at least an hour, fiddling with his Transformer toy and talking to me intermittently in a language I could not quite make out.
But who cares? He sat on my lap. He stayed. Eureka! Jake sat in his spot for the same duration, and allowed me to wrap my right arm around him in a comfortable grandpa snuggle. They should have taken a picture.
Warmth? You bet. That kind of grandpa warmth is even better than long underwear.