“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”
- Anton Chekhov
It's January here in the midwest…well, January everywhere. They're calling for a big winter snow storm/cold temps, etc. Judging by the collective freak out of the locals, you'd be forgiven for thinking that maybe nothing like that's ever happened before.
The following poem by Baron Wormser, recalls for me, a time of growing up on the wind-swept plains of northern Missouri during a certain age and socioeconomic status. A world of armadillo gray skies from November to April, and a repeating cycle of snow, thaw, slush and refreeze - of hand-me-down rattly cars, fickle and spiteful about starting on any day, let alone 12 below. “Can I get a jump?” was said or heard with regularity, and once fired back up, $1.13 worth of gas from coins scrounged out of the front seat cushions and four mismatched threadbare tires would steer you into the skid of another day.
January
Baron Wormser
“Cold as the moon,” he'd mutter
In the January of 5 A.M. and 15 below,
As he tried to tease the old Chev into greeting
One more misanthropic morning.
It was an art (though he never
Used that curious word) as he thumped
The gas peddle and turned the key
So carefully while he held his breath
And waited for the sharp jounce
And roar of an engaged engine.
“Shoulda brought in the battery last night.”
"Shoulda got up around midnight
And turned it over once."
It was always early rising as he'd worked
A lifetime "in every damn sort
Of damn factory." Machines were
As natural to him as dogs and flowers.
A machine, as he put it, “was sensible.”
I was so stupid about valves and intakes
He thought I was some religious type.
How had I lived as long as I had
And remain so out of it?
And why had I moved of my own free will
To a place that prided itself
On the blunt misery of January?
“No way to live,” he'd say as he poked
A finger into the frozen throat
of an unwilling carburetor.
His breath hung in the air
Like a white balloon.
Later on the way to the town where
We worked while the heater
Wheezed fitfully and the windshield
Showed indifference to the defroster,
He'd turn to me and say that
The two best things in this world
Were hot coffee and winter sunrises.
The icy road beckoned to no one,
Snow began to drift down sleepily,
The peace of servitude sighed and dreamed.