A Low Grade March

Dear Blog Reader:

I hope that these words find you doing well. Why would you think that I would not hope that you were doing well?  I would never hold it against anyone who so brazenly took off their flannel sheets in the first half of April. This especially the case on the Sunday after a week of very cool temps. Weather.com having alerted us to freeze alerts on Thursday and Friday. As the Lovely Miss Beverly said this morning, “Come on April show up!” “Yeah, April 2015 wouldn’t want to be known as the April that never was.” I responded. To which Bev quipped, “Only to be replaced by a low grade March.”  

A low grade March, we are stuck with you. Payment for overreaction to a day or two of 70 degree temperatures. I hope that it doesn’t get colder than the low thirties for an hour or two on any given night and that the apple blossoms stay in the bud for a few more days. The guilt of a ruined apple crop could prove to be crushing for many people’s spirits. This is especially true since you had been warned; warned to stay calm, don’t overreact, and leave the flannels on, more cold weather was on the way. We have not had black raspberry winter yet. If we keep a united front, show no weakness, it will go away. The cold knows that its time is almost up. Its reserves are weakened. It has to pick and choose its moments. It must search out the most vulnerable and least protected and then attack. And there you are sleeping without the flannel sheets.

I am doing fine. Thanks, for asking. Our flannel sheets are still snuggly in place. Things were a bit warm a night or two, but I was sleeping with a clear conscious. I was doing my part to keep the cold at bay. Letting Jack Frost know that there was no advantage to be gained by hanging around. “Why don’t you go on up to Michigan, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota? Just leave us be.”

All of this beseeching, begging that the flannels stay where they belong for how long they belong reminds me of a parenting story. There was a Facebook post a couple of years ago from a frustrated mother whose children refused to wear their coat from the school doors to the sidewalk where the car was parked. “Does anyone know how to get their kids to wear their coats as they walk to the car from school in the freezing cold?” To which I replied, “Park farther from the door. If they haven’t put on their coats by the time they almost reach the car just pull forward another 100 feet.”

Parents really waste a lot of time getting their children to dress warmly enough during the winter. Let the law of consequences rule. Oh sure, when they are newborns, you have to put your foot down and force their rebellious waving arms into coats, and feet back into socks and shoes. The poor little things don’t know what they are doing. However, about the time they have learned to sass or throw a tantrum, your responsibility for ensuring that they dress warmly. Yes, you have to provide the instruments of warmth, make them readily available, maybe even keep a bag close and handy in case their rebellious actions freeze and they start to warm to the idea that mom and dad are onto something with those warm cloths.

My dad spent years trying to get my sister to button up her coat. He used guilt, haranguing, logic, everything and reaped nothing but frustration for his efforts, well frustration and a daughter who would not zip up her coat. It is the same with you. I have given helpful advice. I have threatened you with dire consequences. I have used the guilt of appleless falls, all to no avail. The first stray 70 degree day in April comes along and you go packing the flannels off to the summer linen closet where they will do no good in helping you through the last fitful days of a stubborn northerly wind.

So we all suffer, we suffer because you have given Jack Frost hope. He is lurking out there, the sun getting higher in the sky. He knows that his days are numbered for this winter. But seeing weakness, he will strike, and I must confess that it does warm my heart just a little knowing that you are there shivering between you cotton sheets the last week of April, or is it the warmth provided by my flannels.

Take care and stay warm.

Roger

View from the top of a hill

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am very well. The past two weeks have seen me in a variety of noteworthy situations. Last weekend I rode my bike to Bloomington to visit Ben. During the past 3 years, my bike riding has resulting in an annual 100 mile ride between Sharrittland and Bloomington. This ride has been on Good Friday the past two years, and this year in a huge nod to flexibility, I postponed it for a day while I let the rain pass and rode on a sunny Saturday in early April. The rain had passed but the lingering spring zephyr came in its wake. Consequently, I rode into a 14 mph wind for 6 hours or so. Certainly not my best time. Plus, I had to get off and walk my bike up four hills that my cramping legs would not or could not take me up.

It was pretty humbling having all of the college boys practicing for the Little 500 pass me. But what are you going to do? Legs that will not turn the crank any longer are of no use to you no matter how bad your ego is lamenting the sad facts of the situation.

While only a baby tradition, I really do look forward to this ride annually. With the variable dates for Easter and the daily crapshoot for predicting Indiana spring time weather, you never know what flora and fauna will be greeting you as you pedal your way through rural Indiana. There were plenty of daffodils. The tulips were just forming buds, but the flowering shrubs were still hunkered down trying to wake up from their long winter’s nap.

Of course there is the lunch stop in Franklin at the Bar Grill on Main Street. The Bar Grill is home of the “best burger in Indiana”, and owned by completely unimaginative proprietors. They really should have used a thesaurus when coming up with the name of their fine eating establishment. The food is good and the service friendly. This is especially true when you consider that I am walking into their establishment in full bike spandex after sweating through the first 50 miles. I do leave a little to be desired on the freshness scale.

My favorite part of the ride is turning South onto Hurricane road just West of Morgantown. That turn takes you down into a perfectly flat valley at the back entrance to the Monroe State Forest. This valley floor is covered with the black loam of a glacier at its pinnacle, just before its retreat in the face of global warming. Juxtaposed against the next 15 miles of Monroe county hills, you get a true sense of the leveling power of all of that ice. If it would have stayed cold, those hills that were so hard to get up would have been ground down to easy riding prairie land also. I do love to ride through that valley floor.

I do not know if it was the pain of exertion from riding into the wind for 6 hours, the pain from riding up hills with very painful cramps getting ready to jump off just before they seized completely, or the pain of a bruised ego of being passed by others as they rode triumphantly to the top of the next hill, but this ride opened my vision to things that have been hiding just under the surface for a while. The lovely Miss Beverly has been my support and gear person on many of my long rides. She has graciously dropped me off or picked me up at the beginning and end of these long rides numerous times. She is so gracious and loving. I am sure that I have not shown enough gratitude.

This time the lovely Miss Beverly was coming on Sunday leaving my care and recovery in the very capable hands of Ben. It is that care and the juxtaposition of glacier sheared valley floor against unbowed hills that I have been thinking about for the past week. Ben graciously went out for milk and juice to aid in my recovery. He went out and foraged some excellent Chinese carryout for supper. Things turned a bit poignant when he came across the room to help me get up off the couch when a cramp hit my leg like a ton of bricks. He supported my weight as I cussed up a storm waiting for the waves of pain to subside.

The idea that keeps coming to mind was that this was the first glimmer of future role reversals for us. The roles reversed where the son is providing support for the father. At some point, the recurring scene will be son supporting father. It is the way of things. It has also brought to mind my father and our roles at the end of his life. My father died as a result of a farming accident shortly after his 53^rd birthday. I am coming to that milestone in June. There were many relationship milestones that were short circuited when he sustained those fatal injuries; providing support for my father was one of those shore circuits. As a result, I had to wait to experience the milestone role reversal of son caring for father.

When my father turned 50, I remember wondering if dad had lost a step. He was a mountain of a man; working 14 hour days running a dairy farm, making a living by standing strong against the weight of weather, prices, and debt. Losing a step might have meant that he cut back to 13.5 hours a day. He might have sent some of the younger help up to the hay mount to throw 1200 bales of hay in 100 degree heat. My wondering if he had lost a step was born of the ego of a 27 year old young man on the cusp of fatherhood amazed at the longevity my father’s ability to move mountains.

No my father had not lost any step. The steps that he had to take on a daily basis had made him more tired. It is that weariness that I recognized a month before that tragic day in August as we were visiting the farm with Ben his grandson. Recognizing weariness isn’t role reversal. It is a turning of the corner though; a dim view of things to come. It is the view from the top of the hill to the valley floor knowing that it took a lot of grinding to make it that smooth.  

Take care

Roger