Introduction Every year, from late November to early March, I must travel south for the winter. If I fail to drag myself away from the comforts of home -- 45 West Virginia acres euphemistically described as "rolling," some of which are so steep that I, with my bad knee, have literally never been able to set foot on them -- I am reminded of my need to go by a reactivation of my chronic bronchitis. If I do not go -- and this actually happened for five years running before I began my annual migration -- the bronchitis becomes pneumonia by February. Normally, I spend my enforced exile in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. But last year was unusually cold in Myrtle Beach -- snow even fell, and stuck, on the beach itself. And I thought of
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