Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
Dear wife, you need to find a younger man.
I say this because it is February, a good short month for cold honest reflections by good short men like me. I can relate to a month worn down by winter, yet still full of the promise of love buried somewhere in the middle. February and I are like Oreo cookies, filled with Valentine sugar hidden between the last hard crusts of winter. A month, alas, that will never see 30 again, much like you know who.
When next winter the snow piles deep in the driveway and the water rises in the basement, you need a man much younger than I to clear the way. This last blizzard and rain storm were a Coming of Age experience for me. Unfortunately, it was Old Age that came.
When a loaded snow shovel starts weighing 40 pounds and the drifts rise above five feet, you need arms stronger and longer than mine. When the fireplace grows cold and the woodpile is buried 600 cubic feet of snow away — 200 feet of snow in distance, piled 3 feet high and requiring a path that is butt-wide — then you need a youthful male who is still snow blind and wears a smaller butt. When you are snowbound and can’t visit with friends and have lots of extra conversation to share, you need ears younger than mine to hear you out. When the rains come and the snows melt and the basement fills to boating depth, you need a brand new hero, one still waterproof and under warranty, to paddle your canoe. I’ve met my limit, and it was this last winter. I must stick to lesser storms.
Which is why I’ve become one with February. My pal Feb. and I accept that there is no future big leap year left in our calendars to make us 30-somethings. Never again will people sing about what we have, like they do about the “30 days have September, April, June and November.” Not to mention all the rest who have 31. No, February and I have fallen off the top 10 charts. We are worse than also runs. We are also runts. We are the short remains of winter.
Dear wife, next winter, please find a younger, taller hero for both our sakes. February and I have seen enough. Leave us to sit quietly by the fireplace in our rocking chairs and dream back to when blizzards were really blizzards and I was really me.