Four days to Christmas, 33 degrees and raining. They say we’ll get some snow tonight and tomorrow, the remnants of the storm that paralyzed Denver, but it may not stick through the weekend.

When I was growing up, my dad always talked about how dirty the harbor in Manitowoc had become. When he fished there as a kid, it was no problem for him to see down to the bottom of the harbor, 15 to 20 feet in some cases. As my brother and I grew up in the same community 40 years later, we encountered a radically different harbor, one where Lake Michigan’s water had become dark and murky, and where visibility of five feet would be considered excellent.

When Lisa and I have kids, maybe I’ll tell them about how we used to get snow in November.