photo of the month from randy kato Happy New Year! This month's photo was taken on New Year's Day nine years ago, but that was the least of my reasons for choosing it. A bunch of us were staying at a friend's lake house in the Adirondacks. The lake was frozen and covered in several still-increasing inches of snow. It was freezing, gray. I suppose an objective description of 01/01/01's weather would be "miserable." Yet, what's happening here is anything but miserable. If you haven't figured it out yet, we're playing frisbee - something more suited to a sunny summer day at the beach or in the park...certainly more suited to just about anything other than a frigid snowy day on an icy surface covered in nearly knee-deep snow. No matter, we were having a blast. Times like these are precious. They occur when we least expect them, but usually happen when we're with good people and we let go of the cynicism, commercialism and all those other isms that make us weary (and wary) of the world. Such as when somebody says "let's play frisbee" and simply because it sounds like fun, you say "yeah!," thus transcending the miserable conditions and in fact turning the tide in your favor - plain old frisbee is elevated to snow frisbee! So this photo takes me back to that day nine years ago, but it takes me back even further. With everyone bundled up and captured in underexposed black & white, this could be a scene from a century or more ago. Of course, they would have been tossing one of the original Frisbie Baking Company's pie tins long before Wham-O would market the Frisbee®. Nevertheless, the joy would be the same. However, the photo makes me look forward too, as we all seem to do on New Year's. Playing frisbee in the most unlikely setting - pleasure in defiance of unpleasantness - inspires me. I never make New Year's resolutions, but I think I'll start off the new decade aspiring to keep an open heart and mind, so that when somebody wants to play frisbee, I'll be ready. Maybe you'll join me. Enjoy! Randy Photo of the Month archive