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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

No Sigh for Spring

Despite recent optimistic proclamations that spring is here, I am very selective about heaving a sigh of relief. For me, heaving a sigh of relief is like begging some unknown force to suck me into the closed garage door as I pull onto the pad after having safely navigated a treacherous, icy stretch of highway.

I, too, have been tempted this past week to heave a sigh and say, “I’m sure glad that winter is behind us!” I’m afraid to, though, because a few years back, in February, I mentioned with a big sigh to a neighbor that we had finally made it through the winter, and the next morning my truck was stuck to the doors in my driveway in mud and new wet snow.

Years ago, through some sort of non-verbalized communication prior to our marriage, my wife took charge of cold-weather activities like making hot chocolate and keeping the fire roaring and I was charged with making sure we could always get up the driveway to the paved road. Even today, I do not take this responsibility lightly, and as a fisherman and a hunter, I have gained a lot of experience extricating myself from assorted muddy, snowy or washed-out country roads.

One spring, when my brother-in-law found he could not get back up my rutted, rain-soaked and muddy 400-yard driveway, I decided his front-wheel drive car just needed a little more weight forward to make it up the hill. It seemed logical to me that draping my considerable frame over the hood and trying to stay on as he careened up the driveway to the top would solve this dilemma. We would have made it on the first try, too, had I not slipped off, and I blame the windshield wipers for that. Windshield wipers made in America should have never broken off like they did when I grabbed at them.

I have only been stuck once this year – at a goose pond way back in the scab rock south of town, and that was because of excessive speed and inattentiveness as I tried to follow a flock of honkers coming off Sprague Lake. It would have been an easy extrication but for the fact I am a man.

Men have a tendency to become more stuck than women. That is because men view becoming stuck as a challenge to their masculinity. It’s the same reason men don’t ask for directions. When a woman is spinning her wheels in mud or slushy snow, she will usually stop while she can still see the antenna. A man, on the other hand, will keep punching the accelerator until he is either buried or sideways in the ditch. Before the tow truck arrives, other men will stop and encourage the unfortunate one to “rock it.” To my knowledge, this technique has not been used successfully since early times when the pioneers “rocked” their oxen by tossing small stones to encourage them to move.

No, there won’t be a sigh of relief coming from me regarding winter’s end until after the fishing opener in April. Even then, I’ll take a long careful look at the weather reports, and I’ll keep the snow tires on until turkey season is over on the last day of May.