Winter: The Springtime of the Soul

I spent years believing that I was quoting some famous writer when I said “Winter is the springtime of the soul.” A few years ago I went hunting for who I was quoting, and even with the power of AI, I was unable to find the attribution. Then, a couple of years ago, a long and in-depth discussion about it with one of my best and most literary friends yielded only one possible conclusion: I was the one who invented that phrase: it’s my quote.

Its’ been well over a week since my last post here at thunderjetheaven.com. There are many reasons for that, some of which I’ve already described here and here: extremely long hours at work and the attendant stress of the complex, high-stakes projects I’m working on. That’s not the whole story, though. There are details I won’t discuss-this blog is about slot car racing and toy car collecting, after all-but I will say that the times, they sure are a-changin’. It was barely over a month ago that I was more convinced than ever that my future was to be found in the Ozarks, and that a move to southern Missouri or northwest Arkansas was at hand. Alas, recent developments have made that far less likely. In life, doors open, and doors close. I have been caught off guard recently by not one but several doors closing. And now, still here in north Denver, I stand at the opening door of winter.

Being a native Southern Californian, I spent 25 of my now 26 years here in Colorado being enthralled by the winter. I loved the snow and the angled winter sunshine, the beautiful sunsets and the changes in the landscape and the wildlife. And that’s why, last year, I was surprised when I found myself thinking for the first time: “I’m getting tired of this.” Now, as the dark and the cold descends again, it seems that that thought last year was more than a fleeting mood: the novelty has worn off. I’m tired of the inconvenience, tired of trying to drive through it, shovel it, and plan around it, and more than anything, I’m tired of spending so many of these long cold nights alone. For some time over the last few years I’ve had some company in my life…but as I said, the times are a’ changin.’

November can’t be anyone’s favorite month, and with my family hundreds of miles away, not even Thanksgiving brings much brightness to the leading edge of the season. Once Halloween is over, there isn’t much to look forward too until the end of December.

I would seek to occupy my time during these long nights with the hobby this blog is about if I could get any time, but sadly, the mad pace of the last month is likely to continue through the end of the year. Things at work will slow down in January, but I hope I don’t have to wait that long to embark on the next exciting project at Drag City Raceway: the construction of the carnival, and the landscaping that goes with it! As you can see, the long-awaited (and very expensive) 3D Printed creations have arrived, and I recently hit one of the local hobby stores to restock on the grass that will fill this once barren area of the track, and the particular type of glue needed to adhere it. My big concern here is masking the track thoroughly enough that no damage comes to it; any glue or grass on the track would be catastrophic, so I will have to spend a great deal of time and care masking every bit of track-and for that matter everything else that might catch some overspray or debris. This is reason I’ve decided to do it all by hand, without the assist of aerosols or a “static grass machine.”

The plan for this area is to build up embankments with brown modeling clay and then to coat the cork with the glue and adhere 2 colors of grass, brushing it on and back off an inch or two at a time to keep things as clean as possible. A few days to let it all dry and some touch-ups, and then the construction will begin on the carnival booths and stands. After that, I’ll have to obtain a whole mess of new peeps, and paint them all, to populate the carnival area.

While I am looking forward to this project, the truth is, its likely to be slow going; time constraints being what they are right now, I can only do things a little at a time, so don’t be surprised if it takes until early next year to have this finished, but you know you’ll see all the progress unfold right here!

Which brings me back to that quote: “the springtime of the soul.” Lately I’ve been feeling some urge to return to my fiction writing, something I haven’t done much of for many years now. Ever since my father passed away, the writer in me seems to have been in hibernation, but something about the winter makes him stir. That stirring has encouraged me to go back and find the last story that I wrote, almost exactly 5 years ago in mid-November of 2019. I have converted the final draft to a .pdf and, for the first time since starting this blog in the waning days of 2020, I’m uploading one of my stories here for the enjoyment of anyone who might care to read it. It’s topical, because the story revolves around what we all love most: classic cars! In particular, this story was inspired by my 1987 Jaguar XJ6. Most of my fellow enthusiasts for that marque are well aware that any old Jag is more than the sum of its parts, but the car in this story seems to be exceptionally powerful…and the protagonist, who wants more than anything to go “back to the 80s,” is about to take the ride of his life….

If, indeed, my latent “inner writer” is stirring, the bad part of that is that with the limited time I have, if I am to try my hand at writing fiction again, that time may have to come out of the toy hobby. Hopefully when things calm down at work, there will be-as Roy Batty famously said-”Time Enough.”

I’m less sure now than I have been in years what the immediate future holds, but its almost a given that I will be staying put for at least another year and possibly several more. We never know what may happen, of course, but despite the sluggish progress, cool developments are still in the works for Drag City! I’ll look forward to sharing the details of the carnival build as the season progresses, and will be sure to profile any other additional die-cast developments, Thunderjet restorations, or racing tournaments that occur! Even with the descent of winter, there’s still more action to come at Drag City!