Draw on your ear and sing like a Viking

Recently my mind took a short vacation and went to Cancun, or Myrtle Beach or somewhere and left me sitting in Starbuck’s reading a story I had written on a napkin. The top of my ear began to itch and I absent mindedly scratched it with a ball point pen. A minute later I realized I had drawn all over my ear and cheek. A quick glance into a nearby mirror showed I had sketched a rough draft of South America---or maybe my digestive system and a parrot.

I felt my face turn red and I noticed an attractive woman walking my way. She stopped, placed a clean napkin on the table and said, “I’ve never seen anybody do that before. Never.” And she didn’t mean it as a compliment. The very next day I slipped off a curb and with arms waving in the air I over compensated and crashed backwards onto the asphalt. My first thought was that I could do that even better with a banana peel and some vaudeville music. A passing lady stopped, looked down at me and just as her mother had taught her regarding people lying in public streets she asked “Are you alright?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m okay. Thank you very much”.

And I am okay too, really. The pen and ear incident was due to inattention and so was the ungraceful fall but once winter sets in and autumn is done with all its drama, emotional upheavals and lost opportunities to lose weight before the holidays and we start wearing heavy coats and anticipate the first snow--- then we will recover our sense of balance and we’ll focus on survival instead of scribbling on ourselves and falling about.

I know people who are hoping for some more clear 70 degree Saturdays for leaf-raking but it’s not going to happen. God has moved on. Most of us have raked our yards and are pumped up about the coming snows. We’re like a chorus of Nordic villagers coming on stage in an opera at the end of Act I dressed in thick bear skin coats with a backdrop of blowing snow and Beigarth the Viking wearing a furry cap with horns has captured the beautiful Princess and with sword raised vows to make her love him, and we all sing “The cold makes us strong and brave! The winter winds strengthen our hearts and make us grateful for Beef Wellington with a light salad for we know proper diet is the secret of happiness. Hurrah!” Cue the curtain.

As a Baptist I grow suspicious of spontaneous joy and tend to favor adversity and mild depression---that’s just how I roll. Winter keeps me focused on decongestants and shoveling snow. When you’re an old guy passing through heart attack country you pick up a snow shovel with trepidation, then you take a deep breath and attack the driveway with the fatal heroism of Old Yeller. Suddenly you feel closer to God. Really close.

Meanwhile the lazy non-leaf-rakers will see their yards ruined due to fungus that grows under the leaves and secrete poisons into the soil. Their home will decrease in value and the bank will foreclose and the family will move south to work in the sugar cane fields and their cars will sit on cinder blocks and their wives will be ravished by cruel land owners who wear suspenders over dirty undershirts. Those folks will wish a thousand times they had resisted autumn’s drama and buckled down and raked their leaves like the good neighbors did.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh yea, Cancun.