Listening to Coker's story reminded me of my mother describing the bad winter blizzard the night I made my own entry into the world thirty years before and how my father had to go out a window to get to the well because the door was frozen shut. Then he had to break through the ice to get the water. When he returned, he was carrying three hens that the blizzard had blown up against the outhouse. They were frozen solid.

As we had on previous nights, we established a sentry rotation. We had enough people so that two people could take two hour shifts during the night. Charley and I volunteered for the first shift. My position was atop a small hillock where I could survey the south and east. Charley's was on a rocky ridge where he could look north and west.

There...

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