There's less hunkering, too.

It's mid-November and a sunny 73 degrees outside. This is deeply unsettling for a kid from Collinwood, where the annual snowfall measurement is somewhere between a Keith Richards coke-line and an NBA center. Down here, winter means hanging up the seersucker until next year. Where I come from, it's an unambiguous restatement of the ground rules of existence: The world is trying to kill you. Eventually it will. The best you can do is buy yourself a little time. Survive till April, and you win the prize -- spring cleaning and a few games of horseshoes in your shirtsleeves.