{"id":2627,"date":"2016-12-17T22:35:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T02:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/?p=2627"},"modified":"2017-02-10T20:38:06","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T00:38:06","slug":"return-of-the-old-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/?p=2627","title":{"rendered":"Return of the Old Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I woke up today to find Old Man Winter out in the yard.\u00a0 He was quietly, milling about outback\u00a0in the leave-strewn garden.\u00a0 I was surprised to\u00a0see him because he wasn&#8217;t due for a few more weeks. A light dusting of snow let me know he was around.\u00a0I&#8217;ve known him for quite some time and was glad to see he wasn&#8217;t in a bad mood.<\/p>\n<p>As I looked out the window, he glanced up and gave me a quick nod. It&#8217;s a yearly ritual we &#8216;ve been doing as long as I can remember. At the start, he saw me as little boy, looking out with excitement at the new fallen snow.\u00a0Now he sees my\u00a0haggard middle-aged-morning face peering out- toussled bed hair and a weekends worth of beard stubble<i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/cropped-cropped-Arbol_Navidad_02.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1026\" src=\"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/cropped-cropped-Arbol_Navidad_02-300x107.jpg\" alt=\"cropped-cropped-Arbol_Navidad_02.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"107\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/cropped-cropped-Arbol_Navidad_02-300x107.jpg 300w, https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/cropped-cropped-Arbol_Navidad_02.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s strange to think of him coming around before I was born. And stranger to think of him\u00a0coming around after I&#8217;m gone.<\/p>\n<p>At that point, at least I won&#8217;t have to shovel!<\/p>\n<p><em>copyright 2016 Christopher Donahue<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I woke up today to find Old Man Winter out in the yard.\u00a0 He was quietly, milling about outback\u00a0in the leave-strewn garden.\u00a0 I was surprised to\u00a0see him because he wasn&#8217;t due for a few more weeks. A light dusting of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/?p=2627\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2737,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherdonahue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}