2nd Wind, March 2002

Happiness comes through doors you didn't even know you left open.

Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles. It empties today of its strength.

I knew it would happen some day....a month without 2nd Wind material.  It hasn't been a dull month, just unnewsworthy. I suspect, too, that some of my friends are becoming more discreet about what they share. However, I have other friends who are more liberal and they, unknowingly, are going to help write this 2nd Wind.

I did watch a lot of the Olympics (at the same time accomplishing accelerated completion of knitted squares for the local 4H club. They sew them into blankets for the displaced.) I decided the job I wouldn't want was to be an Olympic announcer, struggling with the pronunciation of all those names.  Take the name most familiar to me - George. I'd known since my High School days that the Spanish version is Jorge.... pronounced Hor-Hay.  When I saw the Austrian (I think) competitor named George, I felt I was in my comfort zone. No!  He is Gay-Org. The Swedish Richard Richardson is Rik-ard Rik-ardson.  If you can't safely pronounce George or Richard, what surprises could lurk in Sikharulidze or Nikoultchina?

Alice Page Herman wrote, "Out at Lil' Acorn (our 40 acres in the hills 2 hrs. east of Fortuna, CA) we have a resident green frog in the bathroom of the trailer.  He was first spotted as a tiny little green speck, two years ago, with a mighty croak for one so small. We were worried he would die over the winter shut up in that small room, so I caught him and took him outside to the fountain. The next time we were up there he was back in the bathroom. This year he is quite fat and prosperous looking (maybe SHE?).  Again I managed to catch him and take him back out to the fountain. But, as we were closing up the trailer before leaving, we heard his cheery croak from the bathroom.  Being a dairyman's child, frogs have always been a raucous part of my life. We always knew if something was moving about in the yard at night because the frogs would stop croaking."

In the spring, here in the foothills, the baby frogs tend to climb the outside doors, and when a door is opened, drop inside the house...unnoticed by me, but not by the cats.  Beth and I are quick to spot the intense stare of even one cat who is watching one of nature's unlucky creatures that has made its way indoors, often aided by said cat. If several cats are sitting in a circle, staring, one better investigate, NOW!  My nimble frog catching days are over, so, unless Beth is home, I may have to be the captive witness to an unhappy end.  Or, I see the hapless little guy disappear beneath something in my bedroom. Then I am convinced, when I get up at night, I will make a frog pancake. I prefer frogs to li'l snakes or lizards. In the summer, Beth comes over at least twice a week to relocate a lizard in the ivy by my place. There they are in an impenetrable  (cat-wise) rain forest. Judy Torgus, George's cousin from Illinois, wrote, after my Christmas letter: "We were passing along the reindeer story by E-mail and everyone was adding comments about how women are always the smart ones, etc. My son E-mailed the closing argument, "So the female deer fly around in the cold all night (Christmas Eve) and the males stay home - who's really smart?'"

Gloria McGown also wrote after receiving the Christmas letter: " Beth's antics, sliding down from the railing, brought back memories of our daughter, Becky, trying to be a little ballerina. She had a wonderful little wand with a star shining on the tip. She was supposed to gently tap each other little dancer and the Magic would begin. But she came to one little girl who had "bugged' her all year long, forgot her composure and gave her ONE BIG WALLOP.  I guess that was the beginning of Star Wars."

In looking back through the 2nd Winds to see what month the Beth story had appeared, I see the current February copy is labeled January.  I actually wrote most of it in January, but it was supposed to be for February.  Am I allowed a mistake now and then? I'll accept complaints from anyone who has never erred.

In another Alice Herman letter, she wrote: "Just spent the last ten minutes apologizing to the cat, who WILL lie on the floor in the middle of the aisle right by the stove. She is uncanny about knowing which spot is the warmest. I usually manage to avoid her, but being busy today I misplaced the avoidance memory.  Oh, such wounded injury. I'm sure she will recover as I didn't hit her square, but it is going to cost me a lot of hamburger or stew meat to appease the muse. No prima donna from La Scala can manage the wounded diva mode better than a cat."

Alice and her husband own and staff a hardware store, which is what George and I were doing at the time I first knew Alice, then a pre-schooler.  My nephew-in-law, or whatever you call the man married to your step-niece, gave me a newborn runt piglet for a birthday present. At the time my ten year old niece, Pat, and her brother, Don, were spending the summer. The gift was supposed to be a joke, but the kids insisted on taking the piglet home. We named him Little Albert in honor of the donor.  Guess who fed the pig every three hours, day and night. Not Pat. Not Don.  Since I worked daily in the hardware store, Li'l Albert went with me.  He soon learned to climb out of his box and whuffled around the store in search of "Mama" then stayed at my heels.  The city dweller, who perchance stopped at the small town hardware store and saw the clerk being followed by a whuffling piglet, is now probably telling his great grandchildren this tale to raised eyebrows and winks, meaning, "There goes Grampa again." Eventually, Li'l Albert grew to a size which demanded he no longer be a house pet...or wander among the fine china.  A farm neighbor offered to take him, and although we knew his destiny, what could we do?  We were later offered pork chops. We said, "No, thank you."

June Harrison Benson tells about eating out one day and a small girl at the adjoining table kept staring at her. Finally the little girl piped up, "How old ARE you?"  June, really asking for it, said, "How old do you think I am?"  "Hmmm.....a hundred?" June laughed, and said, "Not quite." The little girl wasn't to be stopped. "Lower or higher?"  June thought it was very funny, but the parents were suffering.  June is several years younger than I am, but I still picture her the way she looked the last time I saw her, twenty years ago.  She looked darn (d-a-r-n) good by my standards, but maybe I had reset those standards by then.