These memories came flooding back to me recently while listening to Medipac's Mark Simone talking on CHWO's "Sunday Morning with Earl Warren" show, about the four key reasons why we become "snowbirds" (apologies to Texas and the Southwest . . . I'm using this term generically).

Reasons one and two were closely related and quite predictable . . . to spend the winter in a healthy environment, and to escape winter's northern weather. As he grew older, Dad had a particular problem with cold, icy Ontario days . . . his hands would become very cold (even with gloves on), and he would often faint. Far better those hands be warmed at a poolside Texas barbecue. Before his "Winter Texan" days, Dad would often end up in the emergency department of a Toronto hospital, at OHIP's expense; in Texas, he only had to go to hospital once in all the years he wintered there . . . and that's when he accidentally severed a heel tendon while diving off the swimming pool high board, showing all his "girlfriends" what he "used to do!"

The third item on Mark's list was interesting . . . a sense of adventure. Well, Mom and Dad certainly had their adventures! Each year, Mom drove for six solid days (Dad had deteriorating eyesight) from Ontario to Harlingen, via various Interstates and the lovely Natchez Trace through Mississippi. They had tire blow-outs at 65 mph (104 kph), 360-degree turns in the median strip while towing a trailer . . . and, the best one of all . . . the car's top neatly sheared off by a tractor-trailer which misjudged its turn on the Ambassador Bridge forecourt and forced its trailer bed, guillotine-style, right across the upper section of their car.

We were all in a panic when we found out but, as Dad said, "we were fine . .. we just undid our seatbelts, lay down on the seat, and watched the bottom of the trailer go across above us!" In fact, he was more impressed by their treatment as celebrities by the city of Detroit, because they were the major news item of the day.

It's not that Mom is a bad driver, she isn't. It was more a case of them having more than their fair share of adventures. When on the road to and from Harlingen, we used to insist that they phone home every night . . . just to hear what had happened that day.

But Mark's fourth point was the one that intrigued me the most - a strong sense of camaraderie with fellow "snowbirds."