Things were clearly building towards a crescendo when the long New York winter set in with an October Ice storm.David had been having what he would de...cribe as an off-day. It wasn’t that he hated teaching. In fact, he enjoyed the challenge. It is a far more difficult profession than people realize. There is a tremendous amount of politics with a small “p.” You have to listen to the bullshit that the school administrators give you and then figure out how to do the job despite them. You have to. Jackpot had found a mate during the summer, a very foxy looking female. Cindy decided to call her Lola. Cindy had to smile at herself occasionally when she caught herself feeling faint pangs of jealousy when she saw Jackpot mounting his very eager mate.The winter was mild. There was no snow throughout the season, just occasional frost on the morning meadows. The rains though were frequent and soaking, and Cindy found herself wishing along with the rest of the pack for the dry coldness of the. " I'm sorry about your son." He hesitated a second. "How much are you asking for it?" Five hundred," the man replied."Five hundred! It must be worth a hundred or hundred fifty times that much."The old man looked at him with a somewhat sad expression on his face. "It might be. Probably is. But it wasn't mine and I have no use for it. No real use for a lot of money either. And when I see it there it reminds me of him. If it were just up to me, I'd probably just scrap it but I know it meant. "Probably not," I said. "The walking wounded you had were directed to one of the rooms we have near our medical center. If there are free pods they'll rotate the people through."Tanya nodded. "On that note, how are Maxine and the rest of my injured crew?" AI, can you pass that question on to whoever is on duty in medical?" I called out.I heard Bren speak up. "I don't know ranks. Robert, Clifford and Vlad will all be out of medical in the next two hours. Sara had some lung damage that the pod is.