Trial Balloon: December 16, 2008 Archive

The regional temperatures this morning are bracing, to say the least. It's 26 below in Virginia, 20 below in Duluth, minus 18 in St. Cloud, and 10 below zero in the Twin Cities.
It feels like late January has come to visit mid-December.
I'm tempted to get out the deep cold warhorses, two big songs from our collection that take different angles on the misery of winter's fury.
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a Robert W. Service poem set to music and sung, in our collection, by Debby McClatchy. It's also done as a poem (with reverb) by Johnny Cash.
"The Ballad of Hazel Miner" is a story from North Dakota history, turned into a song by Chuck Suchy.
One is funny, one terribly sad.
On a frosty morning like this one, I can handle funny. But should I play the sad one?