For those of us who are longtime fans of the New England Patriots, it seems like it was only yesterday that the Pats of Brady and Belichick were the dominant team in the NFL.

We were around in the early days of the AFL when the Boston Patriots were run (and eventually run into the ground) by the Sullivan family and their immediate successors, culminating with the depressing late ‘80s and early ‘90s before Bob Kraft bought the team.

But time flies (even when you’re NOT having fun) and the reality is that it’s been seven years since the Pats have had even a reasonable chance of reaching the Super Bowl. After two decades of our Pats grabbing the spotlight during the Brady era, we’ve been on the outside looking-in for these past six seasons

But after two of the most dismal seasons ever, head coach Mike Vrabel has turned the team around, along with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniel and 23 year-old, second-year quarterback Drake Maye, into a legitimate Super Bowl contender that unexpectedly is one game away from reaching the big game.

The Pats are back, bringing our region together (even for the non-sports fans among us) in a way that only a shared passion for a sports team can do.

As fans across the country have witnessed during all of the exciting playoff games these past few weeks, the difference between winning and losing often (actually, usually) comes down to one or two outstanding (or freaky) plays. 

Some might call it luck — and whether the football gods have aligned the stars (Josh Allen was eliminated and Bo Nix got injured on the second-to-last play of their game) to create a path for the Pats to reach the big game will not be known until Sunday evening’s final score is posted.

But regardless of the outcome of the big game with the Broncos, we’d like to congratulate the Patriots’ players and organization for a great season that made our fall Sundays a bit more fun once again.

As we’re shivering next week, remember, we’re halfway through winter

When the National Weather Service issued its long-range forecast for this winter last fall, it was a good news/bad news scenario. They were predicting warmer-than-normal temperatures for our region, which was the good news (after all, who likes cold weather?), but the bad news meant that this was further evidence of climate change and global warming. Our recent winters in Eastern Mass. had been the warmest on record and that trend seemed poised to continue.

However, Ol’ Man Winter had other ideas. Instead of spinning his polar vortex in a nice tight loop around the North Pole (which keeps the cold air contained around the pole), he’s been playing a sort of yo-yo effect with the vortex, allowing it to dip south and bring that frigid air to us. December was the coldest December in our region in 25 years.

The chronic instability and disruption of the polar vortex has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Climatologists tell us that the colder air that we experience when the vortex dips south ironically is a sign of overall global warming. The Arctic region has been among the fastest-warming places on the planet (four times faster than the rest of the world, which is why the polar bears don’t have enough sea ice for hunting seals in the summer months). 

The warming of the Arctic, according to these scientists, is causing a weakening of the vortex and ultimately sending cold air much further south than usual, resulting in the record cold waves of the sort that the weatherman says is coming our way next week.

For those of us who have oil heat, prices thankfully are the lowest they’ve been in a few years. Users of natural gas have not been so lucky, with prices much higher than in the recent past. Many low-income families are having trouble paying their heating bills, especially with the elimination of the federal energy assistance program.

So yes, it would be nice if this winter were warmer. But as cold as the weather has been, our wintry conditions could be a lot worse (and yes, we’re thinking of the Snowmageddon we experienced 11 years ago!).

On the bright side, we’ve already passed the halfway point of meteorological winter (the three months of December, January, and February) and the sun has been setting later and later every day (sunset is now 30 minutes later than it was on December 1), noticeably lengthening our days amidst the cold.

Hopefully, the worst of the winter of 2026 will be behind us after next week — and we’ll be on a path to glide through the month of February en route to warmer days ahead.