The snow started last night and left about an inch before it stopped. The rain started early, before I woke up, so now we are a slushy place. I left watery footprints from the house to the driveway and back again when I went to get the newspapers. The birds aren’t even around. They don’t like this weather any more than I do and the filled feeders aren’t at all tempting. I have three quick errands today and have mapped out the shortest route so I can hurry home to warmth and coziness.
My sister got around 10″ of snow, and she is welcome to her winter wonderland. My father would call my snow poor man’s fertilizer. I never knew what he meant then I found out it is a spring snow when the ground is soft. It is good for crops and helps everything turn green. The nutrients and moisture in the snow penetrate into the soil and benefit the plants that will grow later on in the year.
Poor man’s fertilizer got me thinking about sayings and pearls of wisdom I don’t hear any more. I think they’re generational, and many disappear when each generation is replaced by the next. My mother had a whole arsenal of things she’d say to us. We were all pretty much subjected to the underwear accident warning, but there was also the peril of going outside with a wet head because we were bound to catch a cold. A little “birdy” told me drove me crazy. I wanted the source, and I knew it wasn’t any bird. A few times she was talking to brick walls, and she found that annoying. Her next question was,”What are you, deaf?” One of my favorite warnings was,”Don’t touch that. You don’t know where it’s been.” I was a kid. Where it had been was of little consequence. Because she was squeamish we were denied the pleasure of some wonderful find. If I told a lie, my tongue would turn black. I dare not make a face as it might just stay that way, and I was afraid I’d have to wear a hat with a veil the whole of my life. I would never join my friends in jumping off a bridge. I’d have to find one first. My town had no bridges. My favorite, though, was always the,”It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.” My mother could pick up even the tiniest hint of sarcasm. Though I was too young to know the word sarcasm I knew the tone she meant. I said it on purpose.
I still turn out the lights when I leave a room, and I keep the outside door shut. My mother always reminded us in that voice none of us wanted to hear that we didn’t own the electric company and we didn’t live in a barn.
