Rise and Shine?

In college I had a roommate whose idea of an appropriate morning greeting was, “Rise and shine! Rise and shine!”

Amazingly, I did not kill her before the first month was out; in fact, we were roommates for three years. But it was always a close call in the morning whether I would throw something at her cheery smiling face or not —

So it was highly unusual the other day when I slipped into my bathrobe, grabbed my camera, and went out at about 5:45 or some other unearthly hour to catch a photo of a flaming December sunrise:

(I’d left the door open behind me, but as Frank assumed he’d left it open when he’d picked up the newspaper, when I came back, shivering, to the house, I found myself locked out, and it took a lot of pounding to get back in — but that’s another story —)

Anyway, the old saw about Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in the morning, sailors take warning held true, and by noon it was sleeting. But the fiery sunrise had been worth getting up for.

When I e-mailed the photos to a friend who regularly takes GORGEOUS sunrise photos (sometimes posted on his blog Cell2Soul), this was his comment:   The key, as I see it, is to get up every morning to greet the dawn and be ready with the camera.

Yeah, right! was my first (inner) response; but then I remembered my roommate from 50 years ago, so my second thought was, Good Lord, another one!

But then I remembered the Mohawk Trail, Route 2, winding from North Adams, still in the Berkshires, eastward to Charlemont, where the bronze statue of a Mohawk Indian with upraised arms faithfully hails the sunrise every day:

Photo by John B.

And so I’ve concluded that although the flesh is weak, maybe the spirit is more willing than I’d realized, and it actually is a good idea:

RISE AND SHINE!