It takes a lot of cold to make a lot of ice, and I believe we've had a substantial crop of both. Love Cove on Southport offers a good close-up glimpse for nonbelievers, if there are any.

I can't look at these big chunks of ice (some a foot thick) without recalling my dream job as a child. Licking the dasher on our hand-cranked ice cream maker.

We'd go out and collect icicles, break up pond ice, or bust up block ice to add around the metal cylinder that turned full of magic mixture. “Add more rock salt,” my father would command, “and keep turning that crank!”

Yahoo! Homemade banana, strawberry or plain vanilla. No matter. It was heavenly, with raw milk from the neighbor's cow and sweeteners from Uncle Frisbie's mill.

“Earth to Mitchell.” OK, I'm back. Funny how a common scene can bring back memories. But those big chunks of ice all wedged in atop one another really reminded me of our ice cream maker.

And you have to know how much it meant to us kids who had spent the day out in freezing cold to come indoors and eat something even colder.

And now, Paul Harvey would offer, “the rest of the story.” Bottom line (financial gurus use this phrase) between my age and the cold weather (large ice chunks aside), I believe I have become a winter wimp.

I regret this and wish that it were not so, but truth be known, this winter has been a game changer. Not sure what this implies exactly, but I suspect my ice gathering days may be numbered.