It’s the time of year that faint hearts who can afford to go south, go. Those who can’t, dream of it. Raynaud’s Syndrome, real and imagined, reaches epidemic proportions. Meanwhile, those of us who love winter for a thousand different reasons revel in the silent snow, the purifying wind, and the cold that deadens our vehicle batteries and freezes our clutch pedals to the floor. We watch our decamping neighbors with a mixture of envy and condescension and view the Carnival Cruise Line commercials with contempt. Badminton in January? Not very likely.

So it’s been a bit unsettling to me, these past few weeks, to be suffering from a case of low-level guilt and acute embarrassment. I find myself avoiding the company of fellow winter-lovers and giving evasive answers to questions about winter plans. Because I’m abandoning the ship. By the time you read this, I’ll be either hiking around or just returned from a Ecuadorian cloud forest a few miles from the Equator and 8000 feet up. Lest anyone think I’ll be enjoying myself more than I would be, for example, shoveling out my mailbox after the plow has buried it, I hasten to add that the trip is for work – one of those rough and dirty jobs that somebody’s got to do.

It’s clear where these guilt feelings come from. A tremendous number of us Yankees are descended from Puritans – if not by blood, then certainly by philosophy. With the exception of its French-Canadians, northern New England is populated largely by the spiritual heirs of people who used to get very upset at the notion that somebody, somewhere, might be having a good time. Thus we consider ourselves to be at our most virtuous (and deserving of paradise in the next life) when we’re at our most miserable: scraping ice from a windshield or snow from a roof; sorting out stiff, tangled jumper cables at twenty below; shuffling down the driveway in the dark for the morning paper; or trying to be complimentary to the cook while gomming down our national dish, New England Boiled Dinner. Clearly, we have many chances to be virtuous; and going south gives our neighbors the opportunity, while we’re gone, to score points on us in the game of northern life. It doesn’t hurt too much to have them openly express envy over your migration; that way they don’t score as much. What kills you is if they don’t say anything and just purse their lips thoughtfully.

Some Yankees, prodded into vacations by the pleadings of significant others, do take them now and then – with a distaste similar to that reserved for tropical cocktails. They find somebody to feed the animals, make sure the furnace is working, collect the mail and newspaper every day or two, and cover their plowing responsibilities in the event of weather. Their preparations do not include calls to L.L. Bean. Lenny’s, Hubert’s, Hirsch’s, or Farmway has everything they might need for a Caribbean cruise or an RV tour to the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

I was interested to hear, the other day, the opening salutation of Governor Jim Douglas’ State of the State Address: “Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, distinguished guests,” he began, and “my fellow Vermonters.” Somehow I’ve never thought of the Governor, popular as he may be, as a Vermonter – any more than, I’m sure, the folks in Massachusetts back in 1918 considered Calvin Coolidge a Bay State boy. But I find the image of the Governor on vacation as a Vermonter very intriguing. Let’s imagine he really is one, and he’s taking a cruise.

Starting at the bottom: There are no such things as shoes you wear on vacation; you wear your everydays. But your wife refuses to go with you if you wear your paint-spattered work shoes. So the Gov goes to Lenny’s on his lunch break and picks up a new pair of Wolverines just like the old ones, but without the white spots. Socks, too: Carhartt, Ragg, or Smartwool. While he’s there, he splurges on a pair of Carhartt shorts, a couple of bandannas, and a Dickey’s chino short-sleeved shirt. No need of a new cap; there are several hanging on the pegs in the entryway at home. If there’s time before afternoon work and it’s the right day, a quick run to the Northfield Winter Dry Goods Sale to pick up more cheap socks and a few T-shirts (seconds, at three bucks apiece) printed with exotic names – Barbados, St. Kitts, Antigua.

For the plane ride to Miami, a crackling-new passport, brown canvas jacket and jeans and a denim shirt. Undershirt a dark blue lumber company T-shirt. The neck may sag after a few days, but it won’t show dirt. A pair of sunglasses in a shirt pocket. When he puts them on in Miami, his wife will notice they’re speckled with white paint, too; but it’ll be too late then for a veto.

Once on board ship, virtually all the snow bunnies will repair to deck chairs and the pool deck to slather on sun block and relax. Not a Yankee. Doing nothing is unimaginable. So a nice long trip down to the engine room to see how that thing works. Desalination plant. Navigation and communications. Peek in the back door of the kitchen near the exhaust fan. Maybe a little skeet shooting on the fantail, a game or two of volleyball (careful not to step on anybody else’s feet in those Wolverines), and a few laps around the oval track to raise money for breast cancer research. A call on the cell phone to the plowing substitute guy to check on the weather at home. Then off to the lounge chairs to make sure the wife is happy. And through it all, on the top of his head the Gov sports the ultimate anomaly worn by every true Yankee: a Boston Red Sox cap.