It’s a cold day with clear blue skies following the winter’s first blizzard, which left six inches of snow as an early Christmas present. 

It’s the evening of the first day when the temperature has stayed well below freezing and I’m sitting in the not-quite-bright-enough light of the living room, squinting as hard as I can in an effort to thread a wisp of one-pound test through the eye of a 1/64 ounce Genz worm in preparation for an activity I won’t do for two weeks. 

As I joined the mad rush at 5 a.m. on Black Friday with my wife in the aisles of the Virginia, Minn. Target store, I caught the stare of one half-awake fellow in a camouflage hunting coat, pinned down between a cart full of pink baby clothes and a display of 42-inch plasma TVs.  His view shifted up to the blaze orange hat on my head and he nodded.  I nodded back with a “stay strong, brother” before I ran off into the fray with Angie’s orders to find the last stand of digital photo frames on sale for $29.99.