It has been a pretty day today, but on the cold side. Tonight we're getting some more snow and it's 20 degrees. About right for the holidays. 
      We have been seeing what we think are fox tracks in the snow on the lawn around our house. Ray Rouleau told me he's been seeing a very pretty and healthy looking fox at their house - it seems to have a regular route going from one house to another and on the pond, no doubt looking for food scraps of any kind - rodents or leftovers from ice fishermen. We have had lots of evidence of moles - the trails they leave in or sometimes under the snow, and a fox would enjoy snacking on them. Jamie and Marie have seen a fox a few times at their house, so we're thinking this may be a neighborhood regular.
     I learned today that one of my high school classmates in Cabot, Larry Thompson, died a few days before Christmas. I graduated in a class of six, and now there are only two of us left, Muriel Pike Green who lives in Florida, and myself. I haven't heard from Muriel since we graduated, 70 years ago. I saw Larry fairly often around Cabot - he used to come to Historical Society meetings and until recent years always was a color bearer in the Fourth of July parade. He served in the U. S. Navy, aboard submarines. Larry was a cowboy at heart. His father came to Cabot from out west - Montana, I believe, and Larry rode his horse every day from Woodbury where his family lived, to Cabot for high school. His cousin, Howard Carpenter, was the only other boy in our class. Howard served in the Navy, too - and he died many years ago after retiring from the service. Beverly Walters Carroll from our class also died several years ago, as did Jeannette Bickford Lyndes. It doesn't seem that long ago we were carefree and energetic in high school - the decades have passed quickly.
     I was thinking today about how parents or grandparents like to tell the youngsters today that they had to  "walk five miles to school, and it was uphill both ways." I was remembering that Larry made the trip daily from Woodbury to Cabot - which is more like seven miles - and it WAS up hill both ways. He had to climb a ridge that separates Route 14 and Route 215, both coming to school and going home. He was late some mornings when it was below zero or blowing a blizzard, but I don't remember that he ever missed school due to the weather. I was lucky. I rode my bike about four and a half miles - mostly downhill to school; but it sure was up hill all the way home. I boarded in the village during the winter, but as soon as the roads were dry enough, I was back on my bike. I remember I could never wear a wrist watch - they couldn't take the punishment of the rough roads. More than one was ruined before I figured that out.
     And so the Class of '48 just got a little smaller. Perhaps the four that are gone are having a reunion of their own . . .
     Now I'll to try to find Muriel to let her know about Larry's passing.