Lord, how I miss the summer folks.

Winter is like a filthy white dust cloth dropped over some of the most fascinating characters in the city. They are still there but you can’t see them. They move too quickly in and out of the cold. Perhaps they travel by tunnels through the snow. Wherever they are, I don’t run into them when the calendar is set to freezing.

I miss you, surly cop. When the weather is nice, I always find you downtown while you’re walking a beat. I wheel up on my motorcycle and you greet me with ebullience and warmth, always a kind greeting at the ready

“Does your wife know you’re wearing her helmet, loser?”

I ask you questions and you duck them. It’s like our own game of cop-reporter dodge ball, but it’s too cold to play right now.

I miss you also, Stranger Who Doesn’t Drive But Who Still Manages To Find Me In Every Corner Of The City. Every summer, when I’m trying to lurk somewhere, you come ambling out of the shadows like a skunk. You are big and loud and you always start a conversation in the same manner.

“Boy,” you say with a grinning confidence that borders on early dementia. “Do I have a story for you to put in your Sun and Journal.”

And for the next half-hour, I stand there nodding as you tell me a story that’s mildly interesting but which will never grace the pages of my Sun and Journal. You pay too much child support. A cop who arrested you said some really hurtful things on the ride to the county jail. You’re going to sue your landlord, the city and possibly Matt Damon over something that involved an ex-girlfriend and a Playstation2.

I think you take winters off, belly-aching stranger. It’s probably good for our relationship.

I wonder where you are, Phantom Cat of Park Street. You’ve been in downtown Lewiston as long as I have, probably much longer. I once tried to wrestle you into a box to take you home. Remember that? You kicked my ass. I had no idea cats could learn Judo.

I don’t know where you go in winter, Chuck Norris of the feline world. I hope it’s someplace great.

Perversely, I miss you, too, shirtless people who should never be shirtless. You are death-pallor white and flabby. You have strange scars, hideous tattoos and hair where hair doesn’t normally grow. And yet there you are, strutting your stuff downtown like every stereotype to grace all episodes of “Cops” ever made. I admire your bravado. It is because of you that we have a city ordinance that demands that no two men shall get to fighting unless at least one of them is shirtless.

I long for your song, Little Man With Big Car Stereo. Since the air became cold, I have not enjoyed the dulcet sounds of your favorite music played loud enough to knock the hat off a man three blocks away. You have a $300 car and a $900 sound system. It must be difficult to advertise that fact when you have to keep your windows up.

I await your return, Miss Anonymous, last of the true prostitutes. You are the only streetwalker left, your flesh-peddling compatriots having turned to online advertising. You still do it old-school and I admire that. I would like to stop and tell you so, but whenever I do, you try to climb into my car. We mustn’t be seen together.

I can’t wait to see you again, crazy guy on a 10-speed bike who rides in the middle of the road because he thinks he’s a car. It’s been too long, scantily clad jogger who causes car crashes wherever she runs. Life isn’t the same without you, drunk guy who stumbles alone along the sidewalks but who hollers and whoops it up at full volume, anyway. Your summers seem very lonely. I can’t imagine what your winters are like.

I’ll see you again, fornicators who can’t afford a motel room. You thought the deep woods was fine for an afternoon liaison but I went out and bought a dual-purpose motorcycle. There’s no reason we can’t co-exist. I promise to look the other way if you promise to keep your love off the main trails.

By my count, there are 67 days to go before spring arrives. Maybe we should all get together in Kennedy Park to celebrate its return. What a grand, semi-nude time that would be.

Someone else will have to bring the cat. There’s a restraining order in effect.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. You can e-mail him your winter whereabouts at [email protected].