Dave Rexroth, chief meteorologist for Channel 7 Action News, used the dreaded s-word last night. Snow. We haven’t had any so far this autumn. What we have had is fabulous, unseasonably warm weather, with sunshine and blue skies. We’ve been doing early-fall weather since early fall. The weather’s been so gorgeous, we Midwesterners are almost loath to mention it, along the lines of jinxing a no-hitter in progress by commenting on what’s happening.
Another midwestern reaction to good weather is, however, present and accounted for: We’re going to pay for this. As fabulous as the weather’s been, it’s sure to be balanced by weather that is correspondingly unfabulous. Or at least seasonal.
I wore a heavy, wool, hooded jacket and fur-lined leather gloves on my walk this morning and still had to move right along to stay warm. This is the sort of weather you’d expect in the middle of November, more’s the pity. Dave Rexroth warns that the thumb area of Michigan, and parts further north, may be in for some snow. Furthermore, snow for the rest of us won’t be far behind.
A friend stopped to chat Wednesday, en route to the Upper Peninsula. He wants to sail on bigger water, and his daughter now lives in Houghton, so he’s trailering his boat up there. He wanted to get there pretty directly, as Houghton was expecting snow Thursday night and snow is rarely a passing fancy in the UP.
Last Sunday, on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon, an older lady gave me what for as we waited in the audience for a concert to begin. The subject: where were my gloves? In the car. This did not constitute acceptable glove management, in her eyes. She was not new here. She hadn’t just moved to Michigan. Carrying on in that vein, she left me astonished. It’s not every day that someone my age gets chewed out, although her concern for my fingers was touching. Also, it was the first time I’ve ever been chastised for un-Michigander-like comportment. I was relieved when the concert began.
The opening performance of the Dexter Community Band’s 2026-27 season, Sunday’s concert was dubbed “Podium Favorites.” All the program pieces were familiar, although the arrangements might or might not be. There were a couple Gershwin selections, a Sousa march, and another one as encore. A Funiculi-Funicula rhapsody, Shendoah, Danny Boy, and some Strauss.
Just to keep things lively, the band also played a piece they’d rehearsed only once—that afternoon—when they’d learned that the concert’s featured soloist was on his way to emergency surgery. It was a salute to the American armed forces, appropriate for a Veterans Day concert, and it went off without a hitch.
For no reason other than the pleasure of learning something new, I attended a library workshop on Wednesday. It was called “Paper Folding Four Ways,” and covered the petal fold, the triangle fold, the Victorian puzzle purse fold, and the Turkish map fold. The class was great fun. Not only did the teacher have a clear passion for her subject, but she had devoted considerable thought to how to present it well to learners. She took us quickly and surely through the petal fold and triangle fold. We all enjoyed ourselves, got to know vocabulary, used a nifty tool called a bone folder that makes crisp edges on folds, and, in short, succeeded in following her directions and making something we could hold in our hands.
This set us up nicely for the Victorian puzzle purse fold, which features a square in the center, with an extravagant pinwheel around it, which can in turn be folded into an envelope. There’s a bit of puffiness and give to the finished product, making it just the place to tuck a sticker or charm—some small token of affection.
The really nifty part of folding this puzzle is that everything happens at once. Our earlier creations proceeded step by step. This one lays down a pattern of lines made by folds, then all at once changes from being, in essence, flat, to being the square-within-a-pinwheel. You tentatively start the all-at-once step, trying to envision how to continue, and suddenly it becomes clear. The aha! looks on all of our faces must have been like cartoons. It felt like being told to pull a rabbit out of a hat and actually ending up with a rabbit in your hands.
The Turkish map fold was just as intriguing, and felt like producing another rabbit. Our teacher was a great presenter. Class ended perfectly on time. And students gladly took the “extra” paper to fold at home.
13 November 2026