I hate the idea of global warming and I keep hoping it’s not true. I’ve lived in Lincoln for 56 years, and my early memories of the town are still vivid in my mind. Walden Pond was often frozen over by January, and soon after, the fishermen would drill holes and set up camp on the ice. I had fun making a wager (sometimes just with myself) about the day Walden would become ice-free. Usually that took place in March, but one year it was April 7th before the flat white expanse of the pond melted into a sparkling local treasure. One friend, Tom Leggat, made a point each year of taking a dip in Walden Pond on his birthday, April 24th – very cold but ice-free!

At our kitchen entryway we had an outdoor thermometer, and in the 1960s and ‘70s the morning temperature occasionally went as low as 10 degrees below zero. On those days, when I walked in the woods, my boots produced a squeaky, crunching sound on the snow-covered paths, and I could see my breath as I trudged along. I suspect I complained about the cold, but I also felt a certain pride, a badge of honor, to live through a New England winter.

And then there’s the Blizzard of 1978, a nor’easter that dumped 27 inches of snow. The hurricane-force winds were part of the problem. The weatherman had predicted a snowstorm, and that was confirmed by the cold temperature and the leaden gray of the sky, but no one expected a two-day blizzard, and the city of Boston was not prepared.

Speaking of being prepared, that is the aim of meteorologists in the 21st century, and it’s amazing how accurate their predictions are. With the help of satellites, they’re able to estimate, to a specific degree, the upcoming temperatures for a week, and they’re usually correct. Whatever happened to the element of surprise in our day-to-day life? What ever happened to the sky-watchers — on earth — who would see a mackerel sky in the evening and know it meant rain the next day; or the sailors on the sea who said, “Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight; red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

The hour-by-hour weather predictions are removing all suspense from our daily lives. We’re more apt to look at our cellphones for weather predictions, and I’m a frequent offender. Rarely do we consult the skies. Accurate forecasts and advance warnings save lives when a hurricane or tornado threatens, but I miss the unpredictability of yesteryear.

 This month, I keep hoping the scientists and weathermen are wrong. I’m hoping for a long freeze to enable ice fishing, figure skating, and hockey, and a return to a proper winter. As I drive along Route 117 towards Nine-Acre Corner in mid-January, I pass Farrar Pond on the left — no ice, but on the right is a smaller pond that has a skimcoat of ice. As I drive past, I wish with all my might that the little pond will harden up into a small hockey rink where kids can strap on their skates and choose teams for a pickup game of hockey; and if it were cold enough to freeze the pond over, I could dismiss my fears of global warming, at least for a week or two.