Winter Is Here, Damnit.

Winter on the carriage is not the most engaging time of year for a Memphis Carriage Driver. The bright lights of Christmas, the fun of Thanksgiving, these things help ease the blow of what every carriage driver here in Memphis knows: the cold is upon us. After the joy of the holiday season is put away until next year and Thanksgiving is just a meal you had on a Thursday, January and February descend. Besides Valentine's Day, it is a bleak and lonely time, chock full of rejection, wind and no money. Precautions have to be taken lest depression enter an already bleak time. It takes longer hours of work to make half the amount of money as the rest of the year and those two months are just around the corner, leering at poor, unsuspecting carriage drivers, ready to shred our financial plans, our morale and our overall sanity to shreds. Of course, Spring will bring back the good times- the Elvis Lovers, the spring breakers, Music Fest and all that, but for now, those are the things of myths. They don't seem real and all that does seem real is that brisk wind when you work all day or all night two blocks from the Mississippi River. "Do you all work 365 days a year?" I am asked quite often. It feels like it.One day at a time, eh? :)