Today was the kind of day--warm and sunny but with a chill wind--that we used to call, back in my Connecticut youth, "pneumonia weather." It's the kind of weather that seduces you to work in the garden, in the sun, working up a sweat. And it's the kind of weather that fells you low by freezing your sweat-soaked body with a cold chill wind that cuts right through you.

The old timers, Connecticut yankees, used to warn us youngsters about pneumonia weather. "Don't get sweated up," they'd say, "and if you do, don't take off your jacket and get cold." Good advice, which today I honored by ignoring and paid for my foolishness by hacking coughs all evening. Tut, tut. When will I ever learn?