“February;Remember?”

by Stumblin' Jimmy Watermelon

ou know, this month, March, may carry more connotations within its broad frame than any other of the twelve months in the year. There’s the ever faithful ‘March winds”; the fateful and foreboding words of the oracle to Caesar, “Beware the ides of March”; Alice In Wonderland’s chaotic and ever worried “March Hare”; and “Time Marches On”; and the plain an’ simple one that my daddy said as we headed for ‘the woodshed” (that that seemed to happen more times than I would have liked)- “March On”. Ouch!

Yeah, I do enjoy and appreciate those sayin’s and whimsies. With a little desperate creativity and naturally tilted imagination they’ve led me into and out of one fix after another. Oh I’ve emerged a bit scalded sometimes and, no, the tale ain’t always pretty. Then again it’s not always the prettiest tale that’s the interestin’ one. That so it seems my friends, is my forte and it is a direction (bet you’ve guessed) I’m most bound to march on toward

I discovered long ago that I had this, be it however distorted, gift for whimsies an’ sayin’s. I wouldn’t try and promote them as the clever inspirations of those that poets an’ professors think up. They’ve always just sorta’ appeared out of nowhere when I was tryin’ my best to understand or explain something that was usually, by most other words, beyond me.

There was the time when this gal that I was really heart-sick in love with (long before I met Ghee), but she had reached about all she could tolerate of me. I was a burgeoning young artist and a stubborn purist at that, meaning the security of money was a constant roller coaster. At the end of an unusually short evenin’, as I left her at her door, she hollered out, “When are you going to grow up!” I had no answer; not until the next morning when I woke up to what seemed a spectacular sunrise. There it was, a sayin’ for her occasion. Just popped up whole in my head. I called her right away, woke her up. “No matter how badly a turtle is burning, he can get down to water only so fast”, I told her. We are who we are, march on.

Later, at a hospital I once worked at, I somehow got nominated (by default) to be the ‘safety person” for the section I was attached to in the engineering department. The deal was that anybody noticin’ somethin’ hazardous or such, should bring it to my attention. At that point I was supposed to go check it out, file a report, then try an’ get the problem solved. I truly appreciated the responsibility, however it came that I’d wound up with the position. Not but a few weeks into things, I got word that there was trouble with an outside access from the top offices’ roof on up to this little ‘bird perch” of a storage box. “Loose anchor bolts”, they said. It sounded like ‘the ides of march” to me. Nobody had the time right then to fix it. It was March, gusty winds; I filed it.

At the first monthly Engineering Safety Meeting my turn came to stand an’ answer the boss’ inquiries into the true magnitude of the matter. My words to come had popped into my head the night before, “Perspective begins to lose its value as one approaches terminal velocity”. I was thanked for my insight and later quietly relieved of my position. What can you do but march on.

Then there was this retired doctor who’d hired me to help him renovate a hunting cottage that was on an island he owned. The only way onto the island was by boat. Tools, lumber, us, everything had to be ferried over by boat. ‘Doc” only had a light duck boat that he’d always used. He’d never needed more. I had a fair sized jon boat so naturally I became, along with the duties of carpenter, the ferryman as well. No big deal. The rub came with ‘Doc’s” increasing habit of leaving daily notes tacked to work I’d done the day before. Each, with increasing degree, offered stern suggestions as to how I might have done the task better. You see he considered himself an architect as well as a doctor. Now I took him at his word that he had been a doctor. He paid my bill, so to some degree I allowed him to think himself a foreman. but an ARCHITECT, critical or not, he wasn’t even close.

It was during a noon time work break that it came to me. I was restin’ on the new steps to the cottage porch I’d just finished, my back leaned up against the wood column I’d set and nailed into place. ‘Doc” was rummagin’ around somewhere inside, I guess too intent on his critiques to notice me loading up my gear an’ headin’ for my boat. Instead of the half-day pay, I opted for the satisfaction of the note I left tacked to that column. “Inexcusable Stupidity: When one allows their purported intelligence to blind them to the realities of their ignorance.” March on…

Now I’m thinkin’ to myself an’ sayin’ to you, “Like this story, no matter how wind blown an’ off the road March may seem to run, there’s somethin’ better waitin’. Y’all remember, March 22 is the first day of spring and as for this tale, we’ve made the march to its end.