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Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

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You’ve “Got Your Love to Keep You Warm”…but I’ve Got a Parka

Posted Feb 12, 2010 by Nicole Yunger Halpern

Updated Feb 12, 2010 at 12:09 PM

Last Valentine’s Day, I had dinner with a friend at Dartmouth’s main cafeteria.

Yes, dinner with a friend. No, not a date with a boyfriend.

To reach the cafeteria, I had to trek across campus in nostricle-making weather. (“Nostricle” equals “nostril” plus “icicle.”) To distract myself from the temperature, I slipped earbuds underneath my hat; draped the earbuds’ cord over my scarf; fumbled, through mittens, to select a Billie Holiday album on the iPod attached to the cord; and tucked the iPod into a pocket of my coat. As I crunched across the snow, Billie crooned:

I can’t remember a worse December…

It’s February, I thought, but I hear you.

Just watch those icicles form!

In my nostrils, yes.

What do I care if icicles form?
I’ve got my love to keep me warm.

Not having a date, I couldn’t empathize. But I understood Billie’s point of view.

Off with my overcoat! Off with my gloves!
I need no overcoat. I’m burning with love!

That, I did not understand.

In addition to normal clothes, I was wearing knee-high socks, boots, thermal underwear, a sweater, a coat, a hat, a scarf, and mittens. I defy anyone to survive a night in February in New Hampshire wearing much less. But according to Billie, love overrides survival instincts.

Which returns me to Valentine’s Day—or, as my dinner companion of a year ago calls it, Singles Awareness Day. In February, singles get left out in the cold. Every rose, every chocolate reminds us of what we don’t have. But take comfort, my fellow singles: Never mind that you don’t have anyone with whom to hold hands. Your fingers won’t get frostbitten if you keep them in your mittens. Never mind that you don’t have anyone to kiss. You’ll avoid the kiss of CPR needed to resuscitate Billie after she collapses into a snow bank because she’s frolicking in sub-zero weather without a coat.

Besides, the kiss most appropriate to wintertime is the “Eskimo kiss”—the rubbing together of noses. And that must be awkward with nostricles.

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