Last night the cold front blew in gently, and a day ago it was 82 degrees and then 28 this morning and brisk, clear, and beautiful blue skies.

Just yesterday I sat out in front of the apartment in the sun in my short sleeves, kicked back, eyes closed and feeling the warmth on my skin. A friend drove up in his old pickup… “What are you doing?” “I’m just sitting in the sun. Getting some Vitamin D.” The sun felt good, and I’d been inside hand-rolling cigars for several hours and enjoyed the break.

Last night I stood outside in the dark of evening and downtown was pretty quiet compared to how it’s been all month. I heard some scattered shouts from people playing over at Coursey Park, and there were the rumbles of distant traffic, and I remembered sitting outside with several friends at night on our land several years ago in another life and we’d hear the sounds of trucks go by on the highway in the distance and now and then the horns of the freight trains crying in the night.

Then, around midnight, I had to bring in plants from the cold, my lemon tree which gave me lemons this year but isn’t doing too well, and my tiny lime tree, and all the pepper plants from the back. I won’t be able to keep the peppers alive long, but maybe I’ll get a few more sweet peppers before it’s over. On Friday I harvested a handful of very small cherry tomatoes, but I didn’t bring the tomatoes in last night because I don’t think they’ll produce enough in the time they have left to make it worth it.

This morning I stepped into the alley and the other plants, the rosemary and mint and leftovers from summer – the tomato plants too – didn’t seem to be doing too poorly, but we’ll see. The little weeds coming up under the tables and plant stands still looked fine and I wonder if maybe, because of the stored heat in the building and the ground, those plants didn’t freeze at all. It’s coming, eventually, but we’ve gone many years all the way through December without the plants dying of a freeze.

I remember one year a hard freeze coming and we were forewarned. We were having company (and no room) so on a whim myself and several friends drove south and kept driving determined to outrun the cold. We landed around Port Aransas and got a cheap room on the beach. We walked to a little restaurant and bar and had some seafood, I can’t remember what kind, with what little money we had. After that, we talked and laughed, walked the beach, ate cheap sandwich meat and cheese rolled in tortillas and drank cheap beer on the beach. The hard freeze had hit as far south as San Antonio. When we drove back north after the freeze passed, we saw where many of the palm trees and such had been damaged it got so cold.

I was going to say, “This isn’t one of those ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’ posts about the passage of time and taking advantage of the experiences and wisdom of life,” but… that is exactly what it is. I just heard that my friend Bill passed, and I’m thinking of him this morning. He was a good man and I liked him and God did too. I’ll go on a walk today if the Lord wills, and I’ll think about Bill and all the great conversations we had. And I’ll pay attention to the day, too, because we only have so many of those.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.