View from the North 40: A little bright light in this darkness

All across the U.S. last weekend people were celebrating Halloween and mourning the start of Christmas advertising season. Poor, simple fools.

One thing and one thing only mattered: the end of daylight saving time signaling the start of flashlight season. The long cold months of double darkness when both morning and evening chores are completed without aid of sunlight. Daylight saving time changed to battery spending time, if you will.

For weeks now I have had to use a flashlight for morning chores. A minor inconvenience and the price of doing that business at 4:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning. Evening chores, though, at 6 or 7 p.m. have been blissfully unencumbered by lighting implements.

Ah, I remember those carefree times as if they were just last week.

Over the last few decades I have developed, fostered, nurtured and tortured myself in a love-hate relationship with flashlights — of which I have had many a variety: micro-mini-one-LED ones; four-D-cell-battery-eating behemoths that could be used for self defense in a crisis; plastic; metal; one with a magnet in the base that I could stick to the metal siding while I worked away in the barn, but which stuck to every fencing staple, bent nael and scrap of metal squirreled away in my pockets; and a hand-held spotlight that lights up the far hills like the Bat-signal and can burn out your retinas if mishandled.

All have been less than ideal for one reason or another, but usually because it’s really, really hard to succeed at chores holding a flashlight — leaving only one hand to operate complicated tools like a pitchfork or wheelbarrow.

I know, what you're thinking. Hat light. But they require a bill on the hat for a clip-on light, whilst I prefer a knitted cap which keeps my ears warmer than that rural-living favorite the Elmer Fudd hat.

Also, they require a head shaped more appropriately than mine to keep lights mounted on headbands in place.

For the record, I don't think my head looks particularly odd-shaped — no one has said anyway. Sure my head can be described as a big, meaty box with a beak on it, but that shouldn't make a difference. I start moving around, though, and head bands pop right off the top of my head. It's kind of spectacular. People have actually commented on that flurry of snapping elastic and flailing, wild hair.

Though awkward in their own way, the most user-friendly lights have been anything small enough, including clip on lights, that I can hold clamped between my lips

On cold days the steam of my breath billows eerily into the light beam and my teeth and throat complain as I suck cold air back through my propped-open mouth. I’m certain the condensation of moisture from my breathing seeps inside the casing and shortens the life of the flashlights, but I can shine the light wherever I’m looking and both hands are free to work efficiently.

It’s not perfect, but the solution has worked for several years and several flashlights. And I have grown accustomed to the makeshift tool. Developed skills, if you will.

Certainly I can fall back to this fail-safe, though flawed, method, but this is year, well, this year I’m trying something different.

This year I have special-ordered two items: a clip-on light as bright as a mini spotlight that runs off of a single, cheap, AAA-battery and a thick, knitted, stocking cap that (insert some kind of musical fanfare here) has a hard bill sewn into it.

I know, I can hardly contain my anticipation myself, so I can only imagine how excited you readers are for me.

As I write this, I am on the eve of launching my new endeavor. The temperature will be hovering around freezing in the morning. My cap, light already clamped into place, awaits me by the front door by my coat and boots, everything ready for morning gear up.

I am trying to keep my expectations realistic — disappointment is a reall possibility.

Success, though, could mean a little measure of bliss twice a day for the next 120-some odd days until daylight saving time rolls around again.

(It's only a third of a year at [email protected].)