Late at night with nothing better to do, I was watching YouTube videos about the big winter storm pounding the U.P. — three feet of snow and twenty below with gale force winds off Lake Superior.

That day, a day or two into the new year, it had been sixty degrees in Denver and all along the Colorado front range where the High Plains of America wash up against the Rockies. A long time ago, the plains were the floor of an inland ocean with sunny beaches all the way from Alaska to the Gulf, while the U.P. was buried beneath a mile or so of glacial ice.

I grew up in the U.P., a land of two seasons — winter and getting ready for it. It’s like Siberia in that way.

When I was old enough, I took off to see if the stories I’d heard about other worlds were true. But my younger brothers and sister and my folks and lots of relatives still live up there, as they say, “way up nort’ ‘dare in ‘da U.P., eh, you betcha’.”

Dad’s two years away from turning 100. Mom’s not far behind. That means I’m getting close to 80. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing my mind, which is ok as long as I don’t forget what’s important.

Family is important.

My family is spread out across the face of the earth, from treeless desert to forested tundra. Every one of us looks at the world from a different, and sometimes conflicting point of view. Dad and I came close to fist fights more than once during the Vietnam years, but we never wished one another any harm, like tripping over a log in the woods and breaking a leg and getting eaten by a bear. Only crazy people think that way — people who don’t know why they think the way they do.

And family is not just what we’re born into, but we choose our family, too. Culley Jane and I chose to make one another’s families our own when we chose to say “I do.” You can never have too many Mikes in the family.

And we also often hear people talk about a “Family of Nations.” That’s important, too. If it was up to me, I’d build a tunnel beneath the Bering Sea so I could drive my car to go visit my extended chosen family cousins in Siberia. I’d wait until summer, though. But after the thaw, the Siberians would know the best fishing spots in their neck of the woods. We’d be gathered around a roaring campfire wearing headphones to translate our thoughts into a common language, telling stories, making plans for the coming year.

… it was getting late.

I figured I had watched enough YouTube videos of the big U.P. storm. Really, I was just killing time. Culley Jane was already asleep upstairs. It was time for me too.

I try to think pleasant thoughts when I’m trying to fall asleep. Often, I’ll think about ski jumping on Millie Hill as a kid or replay the time I scored the winning touchdown against Escanaba Holy Name. I figured that tonight I’d think about sitting around a campfire with my adopted Siberian cousins. I could paint the sky with Northern Lights.

… I yawned.

Before shutting my computer down for the night, I decided to make one last check of the news…

Explosions in Venezuela!?

I had a hard time falling asleep.