It's kind of nostalgic now, but wasn't then. Remember that cold winter with the bluejay in the backyard? Sure, there was an aviary's cast of feathered characters out there, but all I remember now is the blue dictator in the birdfeeder.

When we settled in, so many days that winter were spent watching our investment in birdseed. Oh the guests we had that cold, blizzard-long winter. All the colors of the rainbow were fluttering around in the back yard, engulfed in an endless canvas of white.

Icy roads, dark clouds, record-breaking snowfall, silent storms and mixed birdseed bought deep-discounted, category killer-ized. It was bought so cheap; well, as cheap as birdseed.

A dead, gray November sky, perennially our harbinger of winter, brings depression and ennui. As the sun gives up its hold and goes way below, leaving this little northern town very cold, as dizzy white blows fuzzy on asphalt. Tires spin at 70 mph on the odometer but we travel nowhere. We're stuck, again. The nightly television news teams report homeless die in abandoned buildings, under derelict junks.

After wine and parties, poetry readings at the outdoor cafe, driving home in the dry heat of sunlight, the hot, subtle summer dies and then, there's winter.

Winter.

The time the jay visits under December, January and February's stark, harrowing skies.

"See, he eats the seed and nuts," you say. "Look at him up there on that birdfeeder, a little dictator. An arrogant, general in such a pretty, impeccably kept blue uniform!"

In the meantime, I go my way, attending phobias I haven't discovered yet. When I get out to work, I bash through a pecking order of office politics, staples, paper clips and click-clacking Gavagai that turns to icy avalanches. After the Arctic blast of blizzards, silent, raging storms and bone-breaking cold have gone, there will always be the first warm breeze, the first flower seen and the first tree to grow leaves, again.

But long, grueling winters leave us hung-over with sober, slick chills and frost. Over time, the birdfeeder isn't a little wooden house on a pole, with a little blue autocratic dictator — his bright wings flashing, his silver undersides waving, his sharp beak flying around like a neat, precise set of butterfly knives. No, it's here. The birdfeeder. It's right here, with me now. Winged lesser-thans in sweaters dive to the wooden bottom, pecking at dust. They try not to bleed to death in the freeze.

Winter grows colder, harsher.

Being snowed-in isn't such a curse. I have the birdfeeder out back to keep me entertained. I also have CNN, MTV, ESPN, The World Wide Web, and radioed-in Rock 'N' Roll genres continually imploding, digressing and convulsing, pushing the First Amendment Envelope like the jay bullies and bludgeons cardinals, sparrows, finches and pretty tufted things that look like a flyfishing fanatic's fancy dream.

A bully on an icy wooden skid, see up there — he's perched high on the Plexiglas feed-drop. This arrogant general stands at attention all day, under a dim winter sun, flashing his narrow, sharp beak like the soldier he is; like the warrior he has evolved into — to become the epoch- and eon-winning thug and the fittest survivor of the small, talonless, feathered set in the northern Midwest.