A NIPPY START TO A TUESDAY MORNING IN BROWNTOWN

(Ed.s' Note: The weather (person) says we woke up in the low 50s, but to residents of a city that is used to average temperatures of 70s and 80s even in the dead of winter, it sure feels a mite chilly. We remember Brownsville Herald reporter and local broadcaster Bill Young telling the story of Ward Colwell as both walked across the bridge heading to Gambrino's, a Matamoros watering hole, during a blue northern.

Bill said that both were a bit chilly as the wet northern blew in, but that Ward noticed a Matamoros street person tucked away in a door entrance for protection shivering in the cold. "Ain't nothing colder than a cold Mexican," quipped the old city editor.

We've repeated the joke before some of our Hispanic and Mexican friends who indignantly said they resembled that remark. But we see the humor in it because, face it, given the climate change of the last decades, northerns aren't what they used to be. And long-time South Texas residents – regardless of who or what they are – don't take kindly to a cold snap. Now, we don't know whether the birds above are Mexican or American, or Hispanic pigeons, but they sure look cold huddled on the overpass concrete.)