Here in this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley, anyway, we’re enjoying a mild winter. A pleasant surprise, inasmuch as most of the rest of the country, and I guess the Northern Hemisphere, is getting slammed by savage cold and snowfall for the second year [...]]]> No, seriously. The day is beautiful. It’s not about the band.

Here in this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley, anyway, we’re enjoying a mild winter. A pleasant surprise, inasmuch as most of the rest of the country, and I guess the Northern Hemisphere, is getting slammed by savage cold and snowfall for the second year in a row. At the same time we seem to also be enjoying, once again, record or near-so snowpack in the higher elevations, meaning upstream. Meaning we should have pretty good supply of water once spring melt begins.

It’s just about dead mid-winter. Of course, that’s here in the real world, where season change pretty reliably around the beginning of the appropriate month – March, in the case of the next one. Indeed it should start feeling and smelling like Spring in the latter half of February. Not that spring here is unmitigated joy, especially early on: it can still be cold and tends to be brutally windy.

I was moved to all this when sitting on the porch briefly around noon, having returned from breakfast with Joe at our favorite VI. I was soaking in some sunshine and communing with a friendly neighborhood cat, and I noticed a House Finch with a beautiful red head hanging out in one of the two currently bare elm trees out front. With him was a drabber greyish-brown bird that I’m supposing was Mrs. Finch. The bird books offer little help other than to confirm that female House Finches are indeed drab and nondescript.

I don’t know if House Finches actually go away for the winter; I suspect not. I still regard them as harbingers of spring, That’s usually when I first notice them. It may be because they’ve gotten their new plumage so you can tell them (the males at least) from all the other little drab birds, or it may be that I start being outdoors more often and longer.

Robins never really go away from around here, although I do see more of them in spring than over the winter when walking Emma. Years ago an expert in local birds who was giving a seminar at the RGNC said that the real sign of spring was when the vultures returned to Albuquerque. Make of that what you will.

On other fronts – I note with sadness that Number Six has finally left The Village for good.

The Danger Man site linked to in this article on “Patrick McGoohan and The Prisoner in France” (which is subtitled How TV’s most individualist character made a communitarian country swoon, and is worth a read itself) brought me something I’ve wanted for a long time. As a kid I hugely enjoyed McGoohan’s Danger Man, broadcast here as Secret Agent (and for fans of both series: The Prisoner’s Number Six was totally a retired John Drake from the first series, right? Right?) While I found the Johnny Rivers theme for the US version, “Secret Agent Man,” deeply okay, I loved the harpsichord music that was always played at the opening of each episode.

The Danger Man site offers free MP3 downloads of music from the show, including both “Secret Agent Man“ and the piece I really liked, which it turns out is called “High Wire“ (ignore that the site lists it as “Hire Wire.”) Listening to it – for the first time in 40-odd years – some odder than others, granted – *rimshot!* – I wonder if it’s really a harpsichord. But it sounds like a harpsichord, and I still enjoy it.

As an added bonus they offer Ron Grainer’s haunting and excellent theme to The Prisoner.

Much as I admire Captain Mal’s, “I aim to misbehave” from Serenity, nothing can match the thrill I used to feel hearing McGoohan’s defiant cry: “I am not a number! I am a free man!” Even if it was followed by the mocking laughter of the New Number 2. (Of whom the best was Leo McKern.)

Anyway, Patrick – be seeing you!

Finally, on the off chance you’re still interested, here’s another picture of that Airbus floating on the Hudson. Airbus and US Airways must hate people like me. Even though it appears neither company had much to do with the crash, which seems to’ve been caused by Canada geese. Or elite al-Qa’ida Suicide Geese Commandos, as Faux News undoubtedly has it.