It was the rainy last day of March 2010 when I began writing this. I am told the winter was “hard” and “cruel,” with altogether more snow than is normal, and though I missed much of that, I got a taste this month. Hard. Cruel. These words draw laughter from the ghosts of the past, which haunt our modern world, whether or not we realize it. “Hard and cruel?” they ask, snickering as they glimpse at my dry, warm apartment, the bucket of beer-in-the-making fermenting on the kitchen table, the shelves full of books, the fridge stocked with food. “You …