I had to really think hard about what I wanted to write about in this first column of 2014. There were so many things I could have chosen to write so at least I know I have plenty of fodder for the future. That is, if I survive the first normal Maine winter we have experienced in several years or maybe my memory is fading faster than my body is deteriorating with all this cold, snow and ice.

When I was young I thought it was a fairy tale when an elderly person told me bad weather was coming because they could feel it their bones. Now my problem is I do feel it in my bones when a storm is coming and since it’s winter, I know I will feel even worse after the storm.

I am worried about the direction our country is taking because I know of so many people that are being banged and bumped financially on a daily basis. For many, it’s even worse than living paycheck to paycheck. Last Monday, I was watching the early-morning news, which did nothing but bring even more bad news as one article was about 10 things that would cost us more in 2014. Somehow I tend to believe that everything but advice is going to cost us more, but then again many of us know what advice is worth. Only a couple of months ago I read a newspaper article that stated the price of propane would be going down because there was a hefty increase in the search and production of natural gas. All of a sudden, now there is a shortage of propane along with honey and cocoa beans. But I know darn well there will never be a shortage of government wherein our hugest problem lies, but that’s a future column.

Monday had bangs and bumps for many people. I actually turned off the police scanner a little after turning it on at 6 a.m. The first thing I heard at that early hour is that the police had to use a Taser on someone. Evidently in some towns plow trucks slid into ditches and a couple overturned. I ended up going to lunch where someone might have had a stroke in the parking lot. God only knows how many accidents occurred because I noticed that many drivers didn’t slow down for the bad weather and fog. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me because on a previous occasion a car passed me by the South Windham post office and I was heading to Gorham. It was a good thing that no cars were coming up the hill there because there would have been an unavoidable head-on collision.

I believe that ObamaCare will being affecting more and more of us even if we don’t have to sign up for it, so I dread what bangs and bumps will come with that. My wife and I have received erroneous medical bills, problems with her dental insurance costs, and it seems doctors are now asking more and more personal questions that should not be part of medical care as far as I am concerned. Somehow I have concluded that it is nothing less than government trying to control us in any manner that they can. I also have a strong feeling that more of us will have less after the full implementation of ObamaCare, if we have any money left at all.

Maybe it’s a good thing that all this bad weather we are having gives me less time to worry about how much the government is really spying on us, whether it’s our computer, telephones or toilet seats. I have more bumps and bruises already this winter so maybe it’s time government does my driveway. Yeah, right.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham really likes winter, in Bermuda.