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Goofy and chaotic

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VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor T here’s photographic evidence that I’ve been building snowmen as far back as 1978, when I was four or five years old, but the earliest one I actually remember building was a few years later, maybe 1982 or 1983 (depending on if it was a late-year or early-year snow).

I built it with my younger sisters. It was big snowstorm with that “good” snow – you know the kind I mean, wet and fluffy, good for snow angels, snow-cream, snowballs and, of course a snowman. It was a lingering snow too, with several sub-freezing days, which meant that the low-lying area between our house and the next-door neighbor’s house that always held water got frozen solid enough for us to “ice skate” on (in our tennis shoes, of course. I know literally no one around here who actually owns ice skates). It was probably around a 20-by-30 patch of ice, but as a kid, it seemed like a full-size NHL hockey rink.

So, when the snow came, we were gifted with a few days off from school (which unlike today, we actually ended up having to make up at the end of the year and go until early June). Of course, we set out one of those days to make a snowman. We slipped on some of our socks to use as makeshift mittens (growing up, we always had a few pairs of gloves around the house but never could find them when we actually needed them) and headed out.

And we did indeed make a very nice snowman. It was a three-baller, with each of us tasked with rolling up a big snowball for him. I, as the oldest, rolled up a huge bottom snowball for the lower half of the body. It was a good two feet thick all by itself. My oldest sister did the middle part and my baby sister, who would have been like four at the time, managed (with a little help) to roll something that would pass for his head.

We stacked up all our snowman pieces and there he was, probably nearly five feet tall, which was taller than any of us at the time. Then came the time to decorate him. We didn’t have a top hat like good ol’ Frosty from the song and cartoon but we did, for some reason, have an old cowboy hat, so I guess we made Festus the Snowman, Frosty’s redneck cousin from the South Pole.

For the eyes, we used two black checkers (no coal available) and the traditional carrot for his nose. I think we wrapped a beach towel around his neck (or maybe a blanket, memory fails me on that one) and I found two perfectly-shaped and forked tree limbs for his arms. There was just one thing missing… his mouth.

To this day, I don’t know what makes for a good snowman mouth. And we certainly couldn’t think of anything back then. I asked my Mom, who sent us to my Dad, who went out to the backyard and after rummaging through his shed, he found a length of red electrical wire. He snipped off a few inches and fashioned it into a smile.

He met us in the front yard. By that time, we had sort of forgotten all about the snowman’s mouth. After all, it had been like 15 minutes and we had the collective attention span of a squirrel. But he gave it to us and my sister attached it to Festus’s face just below his carrot nose.

And then, and I can’t begin to tell you why, we attacked… Yes, without any sort of pre-planning or discussion or anything else that would have suggested we were ever intending to do so, my sisters and I began destroying our snowman with a series of karate chops and kung-fu kicks, the whole time hooting and hollering and letting loose with the “hi-ya!” and “ka-chow!” and such.

My Dad? He just stood there, watching us with this weird look that dads sometimes have when their kids are being goofy and chaotic. I know this look because he had it a lot… and I know that I have had it as well over the years when my own kids were being goofy and chaotic. Once we had finished murdering our snowman, we scooped up his remains and began pelting one another with them. At some point, my Dad probably just shrugged and went back inside.

I was reminded of all of this, of course, because of the sleet, ice, freezing rain or whatever wintry weather is falling down outside as I type this. By the time you read this, the worst of it will be over. It’s supposed to get back above freezing a little today (as in Wednesday), so hopefully we’ve all been able to stay warm and the lights have stayed on. After all, this is definitely not the “good” snow, and I won’t be going out to make any ice angels. I’ve got a roast in the crockpot and I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

In the meantime, I’m going to go be goofy and chaotic with my kids …

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