I don't really like winter. The cold just gets annoying, putting coats on, taking coats off, bad weather causing drivers to drive even worse than usual. But the seasons mark time better than about anything else.

I was driving in to work this morning and my route takes me right past a public pool. I see it in the summer, the water glistening in the sun, and in the winter with its sagging cover on, one part always broken loose and a bit of the leftover water spilling over onto the top.

But I wasn't prepared this morning to see the pool cover pulled back, showing a half-full (half-empty?) pool of dirty water, waiting for its treatments to prepare it for a summer full of screaming children.

It just isn't time. Or at least it doesn't feel like it. We had one snow this winter. In general I don't mind that, but we should have more than one snow. My all-wheel-drive car I bought last summer feels deprived for not getting the exercise it deserves and craves.

The temperatures are creeping higher and we've already had a couple of 70-degree days. Before long we will be wishing for the temperature to drop to 70 degrees.

But until then I will keep wondering where winter went.


Photo: Oklahoma, February 2008, John H. Matthews