A hearty voice booms out a cheery greeting to someone I can’t see…a conversation continues down the hallway and fades. I can’t know the outcome because I am in the other room. Who spoke? Are there plans for lunch?

January lunch; we charge against the wall of grey cold with strong food. Armed with only a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich on rye crisped in curried butter, a bowl of cold and snappy sharp vinegary coleslaw served up with a mug of black coffee with fresh cream; we drink the boiled strong liquid and click the metal spoon against the bowl.

This is a gut cleansing lunch meted out in bits and bursts and bayonets, heated up with friendship and all the talk of the upcoming storm, politics and the football playoffs.

Back in the other empty room where I remain alone, I imagine the winter battlefield…good eats and caffeinated steam rising up beyond the window and over the dirty edge of the Genesee River.

We ready ourselves for January’s continued onslaught.