Snow lesson like a hard lesson

A couple of weeks ago I bought a snow-blower.

For years now I’ve been discouraged by how expensive a new one can be. I got one for a steal at a garage sale once, but it was at least thirty years old. I managed to use it once or twice, had a bear of a time getting it to ever start and wound up with a broken pull chord.

So when I found one just a couple of years old for like a third or a quarter of what they go for new, I couldn't believe I could get such a great deal. The previous owner was an older gentleman who had undergone surgery for a broken neck. His top three vertebrae had to be fused and his surgeon told him that he had to get an electric starter, because pulling on the pull-start chord could literally kill him.

It was still a chunk of change for someone as cheap as me, but I figured it that this was a good investment. You see, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona so I am lousy at scooping snow. It’s not that I’m lazy, I just never learned how. Besides, I struggle with chronic sinus infections and mild bronchial asthma. Every time I shovel snow, I end up in a coughing attack and sometimes even have to throw up.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to finally have a decent snow blower. When I told my wife, she said that she had thought I was looking for a push-start. Sure, in the best of all possible worlds, but this was a great bargain! As if I’d ever find one so new, so affordable, AND a push start!

But two snow storms came and went and for the life of me I couldn't get the stupid thing started! I'd try to be patient with it. I'd try to be violent with it. I tried every combination I could of adjusting the choke and the throttle. I pushed the little pump to prime the fuel line. I checked the gas, the oil and the spark plug. I couldn't believe how inept I could be. Why was it so easy for all my neighbors to get their snow blower's started? Was it just because I'm from Arizona? Is it because I'm so unhandy? Unmanly?

I shoveled instead and hoped my wife wouldn’t notice. She’s not the type to say “I told ya so,” but I figured she had every right too. It made me wince ever time I thought about it. Thankfully, she refrained.

I pulled and I pulled, I yanked and I yanked. I exerted as much energy and strained my arms and back more than if I had simply shoveled the snow. Not to mention my blood pressure rising from the anger and frustration with this seemingly useless machine.

From left to right, you can see the choke, the throttle, the spark plug and the button for priming the fuel pump, and the gas cap. All there in plain sight to anyone standing proudly in front, ready to drive, ready to lead and command the machine. So what was my problem?


Finally, one day I got home before my wife and kids so the garage was empty. It was a relatively warm day in the 30's with no new snow and even some melting. I thought to myself, okay, I have some time and some room, and no pressure- so I'm going to take a look at this thing one last time before I give up and try to sell it and hopefully recoup some of my losses. If I could get it to work, great, if not, then I guess I'd have to try to sell it for even less than I bought it for.

I'm not even sure why I decided to do this, but I got down on my knees to look around the rest of the engine to see if I could see if something was wrong- as if I was some kind of heap-big macho mechanic.

Lo and behold, down on my knees, from a different, decidedly more humble point of view, something was revealed to me that I had overlooked.

A little switch. A valve that the manufacturer had no doubt, included to prevent gas from freezing in the lines. All I had to do was to turn it to the clearly marked "On" position and guess what- voilà! it started on the very first tug. Didn't even have to tug that hard.

The lesson? Sometimes the only way God can show us something is when we're on our knees. Prayer, humility, submission to Him. These may be difficult, but you won't believe how much less work and grief they involve than anger, frustration and impatience.

knee deep

Welcome to Main Street, Charter Oak, Iowa March 1, 2007 Brrrrr

January Road

I just thought that this was such a beautiful scene on my drive home last night that I had to take a shot of it.

'sno fun

Just in case readers were worried that I couldn't ever get my snow blower started. Notice the Arizona ball cap. Phoenix natives never really get used to Iowa winters.

SNOW business

No business like SNOW business

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader, Thursday, January 11, 2007 Page 3

NOTE: I SO believe that global warming is a genuine threat, should be taken seriously, and that Bush W. was sorely mistaken to pull us out of the Kyoto protocol- but I couldn't pass up a good joke. Especially considering what this column is about. As a cartoonist, I REALLY have to work on my Gore caricature though, but cut me some slack, I only do this once a week and have only REALLY been doing it for about six months.

Around New Years, when the storm blew through, all I could think about was staying inside with a hot beverage and read or sleep. My kids desperately needed to be out in the gale. I thought it was sandy, cold and wet. They thought it was pretty, fun and white.

We were visiting their grandparents’ farm when the snow came. I was worried about how to get our van up the hill and home across country roads. They were worried about where the sleds were and how quick they could put them to use.

I wanted nothing more than to be inside, warm and dry. They had no qualms about lying down and making snow-angels, this means actually lying down… in cold, wet, snow. Did I mention that?

As hard as it is for me to enjoy the frozen precipitation, it does make for some great memories. Last year, I relayed a story from their Grandpa Mallory. My Dad grew up in Petoski, Michigan. Seems he’d fill a bowl with fresh fallen snow and drizzle on some maple syrup. Grace, 7 and Ellie, 5 were thrilled with this idea. Once the sledding was over, Grace grabbed some bowls out of the cupboard and served up the snow. Naturally there was hot chocolate too.

Last summer we picked up a used snow blower. Arizona natives like me don’t have anymore experience with these devises than we do with snow shovels. Come to find out they’re even harder to start than push mowers, plus you have to start them in the cold. After doing more to pull my shoulder out of its socket than get the thing started, I sought the aid of the brother-in-law. Admitting you need help is a huge step for any man. Seems that while suburban high school students in Young Democrats of America take drafting classes but rural students in Future Farmers of America take small engines class. After fiddling a little here and babying the thing there and striking just the right balance of choke and throttle, he had me going.

Suddenly, I was one of those people I’d only seen in pictures of places like Buffalo or Minneapolis. Snow blower lesson number one; if it’s “self-propelled,” let it propel itself. If you try pushing it, you may as well be pushing a shovel, and oh yeah, you’ll clog it. Also, if you wait until too late in the afternoon, the snow will get too damp and too packed, this will tend to clog it too.

I may not be a native, but I am over 30 so I did have good sense enough to turn it completely off and disengage everything before unclogging it. But go figure, I couldn’t get it started up again. Cold and tired, I put it away, hoped the sun would do the rest of the job and got in the van to head over to my brother-in-law’s New Year’s lunch. On the two block drive, virtually EVERY homeowner between our houses was shoveling or snow-blowing their drives. When I pulled up to their house, both brother-in-law and nephew were shoveling their walk. I couldn’t take it. I went back home, determined to finish the job the old way. Fifteen minutes and a few coughs later, I decided to give the blower another try. Bingo! Thank God it started on the second try. This time I let it propel itself and sure enough it didn’t clog. Be that as it may, lesson two is that you still need boots. My shoes and sock weren’t frozen, but inside the soaked stuff, my feet felt like they were.

I was beginning to see why my dad decided to leave Michigan for the Valley of the Sun and why so many Iowa “Snowbirds” do so almost every winter too.

I changed into dry shoes and socks and finally sowed up for lunch. The kids? Knee deep in their cousins’ yard working on snowmen.

White Christmas

Growing up in Phoenix I’d sometimes get defensive around Michigan relatives who wondered how we could stand Christmas without snow. I’d trace my finger on a map or glob from Phoenix to Bethlehem just to point out that it’s not about the snow.

Needless to say, since my very first December in Nebraska, I’ve been converted. Mind you, I hate shoveling it as much as the next guy. This year I haven’t caught pneumonia or thrown out my back yet, but I have sprained my wrist. And one of the few things I miss about living in LA is sitting by the pool under the palms and bouganvillas this time of year, but now I too am one of those people who just don’t think it’s Christmas, unless the Christmas is white.

Bing Crosby first sang "White Christmas" on his NBC radio show on Christmas Day in 1941, just over two weeks after Pearl Harbor. Little did he know that the song Irving Berlin wrote for a 1942 movie "Holiday Inn" would win an Academy Award for best song. Nor did he have any idea that it become the biggest-selling single of all time.

Did he have any idea that it would become a song about yearning for peace and for "the ones we used to know?" "White Christmas" often brought tears to the eyes of many weary soldiers.
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
Most years, hearing Crosby croon simply made me think about snow, or about the 1954 movie Crosby made with Danny Kay and Rosemary Clooney.

But this year I can’t help thinking about much more. For one thing, too many of the veterans who helped save the world from the NAZIs and fascism are no longer with us. Or, sick or suffering. For another, too many people my age are separated from their families this Christmas, soldiers in another war.

This time our government tried to lead us to believe that Iraq was to blame for terrorist acts committed by Al Queda, (which was centered in Afghanistan, not Iraq) and this time our government struck first without provocation.

I have a former student, Jamie, getting married this spring. Her brother Matt (another former student) is in Iraq, his unit has been fired upon and lost members in Black Hawk helicopters. Jamie worries so much she often cries herself to sleep.

I have a cheerleader who’ dad I’ve never met. He didn’t come to parent-teacher conferences. That’s because he’s over there too. Actually, he’s not allowed to tell his family where he is exactly. This 7th grade girl hasn’t seen her dad in almost two years. I can’t imagine not seeing my kids for that long.

I know that today’s service men and women are definitely not enjoying the sun, sand and palm trees in Kabal, Baghdad and Tekrit.

If Bob Hope were to take Bing Crosby and his USO show over there for Thanksgiving, I know they’d have gotten a lot of tears if they’d sing Crosby’s 1943 hit, “I'll be home for Christmas.”

Please keep our service men and women and their families in your prayers this season. May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be white.

In like a lion, out like a lamb

Is March supposed to come in like a lion, and go out like a lamb? Is the opposite also true- in like a lamb etc.? So, does this idiom apply just to the first day of March, which was pretty pleasant this year, or to the first week or so? Shrove Tuesday brought a blizzard with at least six inches of snow!

Does it apply to things other than the weather? Since we didn’t invade Iraq under the new moon of early March, like some analysts predicted, will we be fighting before the month is out, or will diplomacy continue to dominate the headlines?

Either way, the old adage got me to thinking about almanacs. You know, almanacs, those nifty periodicals full of trivia and fluff that editors of other publications sometimes use as "filler." Some of you may be finally finding one for seasonal advice on your spring selection of buds and bulbs.

I’m always interested in what they say about what’s happened or what’s happening.

For instance, did you know that the Girl Scouts of America was organized 91 years ago yesterday (Wed. 3/12)? Or that this Saturday (3/14) back in 1767 was the birthday of our seventh president, Andrew Jackson? He was the general who won the Battle of New Orleans during the war of 1812, of course that was a couple of weeks AFTER a peach treaty had been signed

Like our current president he faced a close election. In 1824, Congress broke a tie in the Electoral College, giving the presidency to John Quincy Adams, the last son of a president to become president. Jackson came back to wollup Adams in 1828. That ended the "era of good feelings" and the only dominant party of the time, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrat’s and some other "Whig" thing or something that eventually would evolve into Lincoln’s Republicans.

Beware of Saturday, it's the "Ides of March," the day Julius Caesar was murdered in the Roman Senate, in 44 B.C. He had been ordered to surrender his power; instead, he crossed the Rubicon river and started a civil war. His arrogance turned Senators against him. According to Shakespeare, Ceasar was warned by a soothsayer that he would die on that day.

There wasn’t really anything special about that day. It turns out that the word "ides" is just a Latin term for the half-way point in the month. The Ides are on the 15th in March, May, July, and October and the 13th in other months. But nobody aver says "beware the ides of April." Probably because April’s ides are on the 13th and most of us fear April 15th more than a trip to the dentist! "Beware the ides od May!" See? It’s just not as scary.

Years ago, before the IRS moved their deadline for filing to April, Americans did fear the ides of March. Jack Benny used to tell a joke about St. Patrick’s Day, "how can you celebrate the wearing of the green, when two days before, the government took it all away from ya." My guess is that it was a dumb joke even back in the 50’s.

My favorite quote attributed to St. Patrick is this, "I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy, raised me." It’s pretty much a paraphrase of Psalm 40:2 "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

A pastor once told me that the original Hebrew doesn’t say mire, it says something closer to manure, or malarkey, which are still polite euphemisms for what the Bible really says.

Malarkey is what most Irishmen are full of. There’s another old adage that says "on St. Patrick’s Day, there are two kinds of people in this world, those who are Irish, and those who wish they were." Having survived many an Irish temper at various family gatherings my whole life, I think it ought to be changed to, "there are two kinds of people in this world, those who with they were Irish- and those who know better."

The Old Farmer’s Almanac warned us that our heaviest snowfalls this year would be in early March. Hopefully March will go out like a lamb after all, they say warm with thunderstorms. But you may as well know, they predict that April will be cooler than normal, followed by a warm May.

"A cold April, The Barn will fill." said Ben Franklin ("Poor" Richard Saunders) in his almanac. Not being a farmer, I have no idea what he meant by that. Does it just mean that the animals don’t want to be outside in the cold? Duh. Or does it mean, they’ll all be snuggling and getting romantic because it’s cold, so your livestock will have a lot of offspring?

This week was supposed to be cold with rain and snow showers, next week may bring more rain.

In case you were wondering.

¡Feliz Navidad!

Growing up in Phoenix, my Michigander cousins would often pity us for never getting to enjoy a white Christmas. Usually I’d let it go, sorta like when they’d ask if we had to shake the snakes and scorpions out of our boots before we hiked to school. Eventually, I had had enough and sat them down with a globe for a history lesson.

"Look," I’d say, "here’s Bethlehem, see? Follow this line of latitude around and what do you notice about Phoenix?"

"Hmmm," they’d inevitably reply.

"Yeah, well, see, same latitude, similar weather patterns, so BACK OFF," I’d boast. I didn’t bother going into how at Lutheran elementary school we’d learned that Bible scholars suspect that Christ may have actually been born in April anyway.

I’ll admit though, that living in the subtropics doesn’t present an environment in line with the quintessential American ideal of a holiday season. This occurred to me just the other day at school. I set up a cardboard fireplace and hung stockings for Cheerleaders and Yearbook staffers. A student asked me "what’s the fireplace for," before I could explain about the stockings another kid answered, "for Santa, DUH!"

"But he comes down the chimney, there’s no chimney here."

I tried for years in vain to get my parents to move to a house with a fireplace for that very reason. But you don’t NEED a fireplace in Phoenix. It’s a desert. Perhaps to humor me, my parents would put up a decorative cardboard fireplace from Sears.

"But we don’t have a chimney," I’d protest.

"Well, uh, um, that’s Okay, Santa will come down our air conditioning vent ducts." Apparently that satisfied me. I mean, really, think about it, if a 300 pound, 500 year old man in a red velvet suit can circumnavigate the earth in one night with flying reindeer and fit down a chimney flue- he can fit through our AC unit and pop out our cardboard fireplace. It’s "Christmas Magic."

Iowegians may enjoy cookies, cocoa and casseroles, but one of my favorite memories were the tamales dad brought home at Christmas from a Mexican deli near the airport where he worked. It may have only been one or two years, but my memory elevated it to the stature of tradition.

A really neat Christmas tradition we had was going to the Sisters’. The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary was a cloister of Lutheran nuns. That’s right, all you Catholics (and Lutherans) who just did a double take. The story was that a Sunday school class of girls were in the only building not destroyed when the allies bombed Darmstadt Germany. They pledged their life to the Lord. Their leader, Mother Basilea Schlink could drop names like Deitrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom.

Their compound, Kanaan in the desert was in the shadows of Mummy Mountain. Ironically, just miles away from a POW camp for NAZI sailors during WWII. Some of them had escaped with a map and a raft, headed for the Salt River, little did they know that the Salt is a dry wash bed 11 ½ months out of year.

At any rate, these Lutheran nuns in the middle of the desert, like that Sidney Potier movie "Lilies of the Field," had the greatest Christmas cookies and tea, and elaborate German decorations around a Nativity scene where everyone would sing and listen to the Christmas message. All us tiny kids got to ring bells and tambourines. Instead of a tree, they used juniper branches. It smelled great.

Don’t believe in Lutheran nuns? Check out their website at www.kanaan.org

You can’t imagine all the poinsettias in Phoenix. At the art museum there was always a display of trees, the best ones were made of potted poinsettias. Of course it just wasn’t Christmas without a few wreaths made of chili peppers.

No, we didn’t have snowmen, but lots of people liked to decorate their Saguaro cacti with Santa costumes or spray tumbleweeds with flocking and stack them on top of each other to make "Frosty the tumble-weed man."

Luminaries and the celebration of ‘La Posada’ (Mary and Joseph trying to find a room at the Inn, the Posada) is a powerful image of Christmas for me. So are little Indian children and angels by southwestern artist Ted Degrazia. Arizona Highways always had the most beautiful pictures of Spanish missions or the Grand Canyon dusted with a little snow, you can probably see some at www.arizhwys.com.

I admit it, when it’s 3° out and I have to shovel snow I sometimes miss the bougainvilleas and balmy breezes, but now I get to cuddle under flannel sheets and sip hot cocoa. And just the other day, as we were driving through the countryside, my daughter gets to spy a heard of does in the corn stubble and announce to us that she sees "Reindeer!"

Murphy's Law & Order

In case you hadn’t noticed, Mallory isn’t German, it’s Scotch-Irish. My mother’s maiden name is Reilly. Shortened from O’Reilly, as Irish as you can get.

Now, I’ve known quite a few Irishmen in my time. O’Sullivan were good people, I can’t say as I ever got a long too well with any O’Briens, but most of the Murphy’s I’ve known have been really fun to know.

Most of them, that is, except for one. The one who was in Congress. At least I assume he was in Congress, because he’s got a low named after him. You know the one, "Murphy’s Law." It’s one of the shortest laws in the U.S. Code, all it says is "If anything can go wrong, it will."

I think it was co-sponsored by Congressman Morton. I think this because the box of Morton’s Salt reads "When it rains, it pours," these two sentiments inevitably go together, at least in my life.

For whatever reason, Ellie, our 11 month-old never needs a diaper change until, Gracie, our 3 year old has an accident. And for reasons I can not explain, Gracie only seems to have accidents just after my wife Bethany has gone out the door to some meeting at school. Does this kind of scenario sound at all familiar to any of you?

I think it’s time Murphy’s Law was changed. Maybe we could start a letter writing campaign to get this Murphy character removed from office. All I know is, we have to do something.

What I’ve learned to do is to obey the law. Better to go along with it and ride it out to the end than try to break it, you’ll always get caught. Here’s an example of what I mean-

So, I was trying to get this Thanksgiving dinner thing going for Church (huge thanks to all you LYF kids & parents for pulling it off by the way). At any rate, we had our computer serviced and in the process, last year’s notes and letters on the dinner got erased.

I forgot to order the potatoes from Staley’s, they agree to get them for us anyway, I don’t know how much to order for and between their move and personnel changes, they can’t find our records either. My mind remembers our Ash Wednesday Soup Supper and tells them we expect maybe sixty people. Not a problem, they’ll have the bags of potato mix ready for me to pick up whenever I can come get them.

Friday night I picked up a movie at Citgo and pulled in across from the Oak’s Club to pick up an order of Chicken. If Murphy’s law hadn’t already been in effect, it was just about to. I figured I’d only be a minute or two so why not leave the engine running, it’s a small town and a cool night.

I closed the car door and started for the bar, and start to saunter across the street, but get yanked back like a dog tied to a tree in the middle of the yard. The corner of my coat was caught in the car door.

"No sweat," I thought, "I’ll open the door and release my coat" No dice, the door was locked. "Well, okay, it’s just a few blocks, I’ll walk home to get my spare set of keys. Oh, yeah, I forgot, my coat’s caught in the door and it’s really cold. Hmmm. I could stand here and look nonchalant in my coat, and wait for Bethany to bring the extra set of keys, oh, yeah, I pretty much have to call her to let her know I need the keys."

"Hmm, Okay," I said to myself, "I’ll slip off my coat and nonchalantly, leave it on the ground next to the car and walk into the bar, pay for the chicken and ask to use their phone. Geez, there’s a lot of people in there. I don’t need the whole town knowing I locked my keys in my car- while it was running." Then I noticed the lights in the lobby of Staley’s- "Great, I thought, I can use their phone, isn’t there something I need there anyway? Oh yeah, the potatoes for Sunday."

Guess what, who ever was there didn’t answer when I asked if anyone was there. "Shoot, I can’t use the phone without asking, well, it’s not long distance, maybe they won’t mind- hey this way, even they won’t have to know how dumb I was." I call home, go figure- thanks to Murphy’s Law, Bethany is giving the girls a bath and can’t get to the phone. I leave a message, but our answering machine is downstairs in the den, she’d never hear it. I call back four times, hoping that one of the times she’ll at least hear the phone and check the messages. Each time my message was more anxious, the fifth time I called I was down right irritated- Murphy’s Law again, that’s the time she picks up, why would she want to help my when I’m so crabby? And, Murpy’s law, that’s when Allan Staley comes out of the kitchen with me on his phone.

Well, the happy ending is that she bundled the girls up in their pajamas and came with the keys so that I could bring the car, my coat, the potatoes and the chicken home without being too embarrassed. Of course I had to call the next day and ask Rick and Al if they would prepare the potatoes AND gravy for us, like they have every other year and make enough for 200, rather than just 60. Thank God, and Rick and Al, they could, would and did. Whew!

Best of all, no one except Bethany and Al Staley ever knew about the whole thing with me locking my keys in my car. Well, that is, until now.