Did I mention I'm ready for spring?

The short version of this story is that my water pipes froze. I stayed at home to thaw them and repair them if necessary. I was fortunate that I observed no damage to the pipes once the water was flowing again. Of course I had expected the worst: lying on my back in the crawl space of my house trying to repair a section of copper or galvanized pipe, or disassembling a connection to replace a fitting. Either scenario would not be ideal.

When I opened the valve on the bathtub and nothing came out, I muttered an unprintable expletive and berated myself for not remembering to let my faucets drip. I had even thought of it the night before at supper time, yet failed to follow through with that action.

Staying home for the remainder of the day allowed me to salvage some good out of it: I ate lunch with my family and helped out with chores around the house, then played with the boys outside in the snow. We ran our big Tonka trucks around on snow roads, then I pulled the boys around the block in their red wagon.

This has been a short week of school for me. Monday and Tuesday school was canceled due to snow. I attended Wednesday. Thursday, yesterday, was the big frozen water pipes situation, so I didn't attend. I went the whole day today. Just in time for a three day weekend. No school Monday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Despite his unpopularity in southeast Kansas, Dr. King was a brave individual worthy of admiration. He wanted to be treated equally. He wanted people of similar physical appearance to be treated equally. That seems to me like a good thing. It was certainly a brave act to demand equal treatment of black people. I find it hard to imagine attending a separate, inferior, school simply because my skin is pink; or being told where I may or may not sit, while others who look different than I do have the option of taking my seat if they so desire simply because of their physical appearance. None of my friends or family has done anything remotely as brave or progressive as this man. If all of us could contribute to this nation in such positive ways as Dr. King, we'd truly have lived a life worth living.

I don't know what to make of that killing business down there in Arizona. Knowing why a person does something like that is truly the million dollar question. I feel better knowing the suspect was apprehended and is in custody, rather than dead. Other similar situations has resulted in the gunman killing himself. First of all, death seems like such an easy way out for the killer. They don't have to live with guilt. They aren't really punished in any way when they kill themselves after killing others.Secondly, we have the chance to hopefully learn from this man what drives a person to do these things, with the hope that it may be prevented in the future.

Some will try to make this an issue about firearms. The killer could have chosen to drive a vehicle into a dense crowd of people and possibly have achieved more damage. There likely would not be a debate about outlawing vehicles then. One discernible difference is that a firearm is made to kill something: big game, fowls, rodents, intruders, enemies. Though a vehicle can be effectively used to kill, a firearm really can't be used effectively for any purpose other than to kill; except, I'll concede, for targets. I'm not sure the point I'm feeling, except I don't want decreased personal freedom for the vast majority of us, the responsible ones. Yet, I don't like that a mentally imbalanced person gained access to a item whose sole purpose is to kill.

The long and the short of it is we need to be aware of how we treat others. Choose to be an advocate and to build up a person, and to support a person. Choose not to be a hindrance to others, to not tear down others, to not compromise others.

I'm ready for spring; for green grass, for warm breezes, and for an end to our cold, bitter winter.