So I am sitting quietly in the living room last night around 9:30 contemplating life and scholarship forms. Its quiet with only the faint sound of the TV and pellet stove a few rooms away. Gradually my ears perk up to the sound of sirens. Is it the wind, something going on in the neighborhood?

To get a context, we live on a dead end street adjacent to a state forest and the main road is about a tenth of a mile at the entrance and we live about a half mile from the high school. [remember I have this whole town measured out in running lengths]

So quiet is what it is pretty much all of the time. The town has a population of 5,000 which decreases in the winter months as the snow birds disappear and it is without a doubt off season and dull around here.

As I get up an move to the front door there aren't many house lights on as an indication of some emergency. But opening the front door and poking my head out there's the roar of ladder trucks and pumpers clearly on the move. Sensing the direction the Ah Hah moment hits.

What school team was playing tonight? A sweet tradition in town is that when ever a high school team wins the championship and is out of town, the returning bus is met at the town line by just about every fire truck and police vehicle the town has and is escorted into town and then sirens blaring, the bus is escorted around town a couple of times, ending up at the high school. What I heard was the caravan making a pass by the high school then heading back across town and then back again a couple of times. As I said, its a sweet tradition and my kids have fond memories of being in one of those bus escorts.

Not something you could do in a city or perhaps in the summer with all the tourists that might freak out, but in the dullness of the winter in a small town its one of the best traditions.

It was the girls basketball team that won the district championship by a point. Good for them.