Living in upstate New York, we know what lies ahead. Hours on the snowy highway. Days cooped up at home. It's not easy to endure our wilderness of a winter. Some will seek refuge in books, drink, sleep, or television. My sanctuary will be different -- refinding an old friend.

You've heard of her. She is lyric and melodic and graceful and grand. You can sample her on old LPs and videos and cassettes and CDs. Rediscovering the Broadway musical is like returning to a clean, well-lighted place.

As a child, our house swayed to the funhouse of Broadway's precocious peals. I love The King and I, whose "Something Wonderful" fulfilled its title, and The Sound of Music, with its line evoking politics, "Nothing is as wonderful as I."

Last winter I refound those friends. Too, My Fair Lady, its score lustful and evocative, and Oklahoma, a cross between Mayberry and Dodge City. Out came Gigi -- and the gallant-mannered Maurice Chevalier. Next, Carousel -- from "You'll Never Walk Alone" to "If I loved you," Rodgers and Hammerstein's most lilting score. Then, South Pacific, a lyric plea for tolerance. I defy you to hear "Bali Hai" or "This Nearly Was Mine" and not feel a stirring in the marrow of your bone.

South Pacific, of course, starred Mary Martin as Nellie Forebush. Soon I will again hear Gypsy and Annie, Get Your Gun, with Ethel Merman, whose voice even Ripley would not believe. I invite you to ensure debate: who most embodies Broadway, Martin or the Merm.

Many say Merman, and one far-away day I learned why. I can still see her, at 70, in 1981, wow a crowd in Richmond. She used no microphone, but lured ovations -- in my imagination, breaking glasses and chandeliers. But Broadway's essence was, and is, the trouper whose heart belonged to Daddy and washed that man right out of her hair and who rivaled Elvis as one of a Baby Boomer's favorite things. For evidence, I submit two words: Peter Pan.

One could not live in Ike's or JFK's America without marveling at Pan's which was Martin's, magic. Peter Pan ran for only 142 performances on Broadway. Yet recently my VCR replayed its live telecast from 1960. For Boomers, it became a kinder, gentler Woodstock: a mirror not of how art imitates life -- but how life should imitate art.

At nine, I bicycled to the lyrics of "Never-Never Land" and "I'm Flying" and the incomparable "Hook's Waltz," the most deliciously demented aria in Broadway's tide of times. Friends laughed at my singing -- but Pan would have understood, like Boomers, Martin never grew up -- not just 101 pounds of fun, but 110 pounds of heart.

This winter I will hear anew a voice spurring enchanted evenings when moon-happy nights pour light on the dew. Where will it land? Beyond the moon or right there where you stand. Who cares with music signing and soaring and flying through our memory -- bright and bromidic, forever young, and free.

Cabin fever? Depends on the cabin. Mine will hail the Broadway musical. How can winter compete with that?

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