January nips the fingers and bites the toe
February is full of ice and snow
March winds down the chimney blow
April showers
Bring May flowers
June pretty flowers everywhere
Warm July our nation's birthday
August ripens peach and pear
School begins in warm September
In October leaves all fall
Turkeys come in bleak November
Then comes December, best of all!
My mother knew that old poem by heart and would always say it in the winter. I think deep down she really liked winter almost as much as I did. Now, many years after she has gone, my wife and I are taking down our Christmas tree on January 2. This has become a tradition and it is still just as sad now as when I was a kid. Even though I hate putting the tree up in December, come January, I hate to take it down. I don't know if this will be our last Christmas together when you get old you start thinking about things like this and your past in general.
As I look out the window there is no snow in sight. This has been the warmest winter I can recall since the early 1960s. That was a year like this and I thought it would never snow, but snow it did! I was ready to run away to Canada, there is always snow there I thought. That was my goal in life, to go to Canada and build a log cabin along a desolate lake. Just fish, trap animals, cut firewood, and have a small vegetable garden with fruit trees all around. Yes, I had it all planned out I could not wait to get out of school. It was a waste of time I knew how to read, write, and do arithmetic, that was all I needed to know, or so I thought at the time. Enjoy this look back at a simpler time, when no one locked their doors and kids could play outside and roam the neighborhoods without fear of anything happening to them. I can hear my mother telling me, "Just be home when the streetlights come on." There were pay phones everywhere, cell phones weren't invented, and not everyone had a television. It was a fun time growing up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and we enjoyed every minute. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
YOU ARE READING
Winter Is My Middle Name
HumorJoin Danny and his friends as they have many misadventures in a southwestern Pennsylvania steel town during the late 1950s and early 60s. The story has many memorable and odd characters. It was a much simpler time; there were no cell phones, compu...
