by Dave Boehi
We've been enjoying some winter weather here in Arkansas, but it's nothing like "Snowmagaddon" back East. The Washington D.C. area is basically shut down, and I'm sure many people are getting stir-crazy. It reminds me of the year we had a three-foot snowfall in my hometown of Eugene, Ore., and the entire city shut down for a week. As a ninth-grade boy I loved it, but I'm sure my parents got tired of it pretty quick.
My favorite article or media report appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, where Kathleen Parker learned something about men during the last week. A heavy snowstorm, she writes, reveals:
Men want shovels, the bigger the better.
No sooner had the first flakes begun falling in this crippling winter smackdown than the attendant quiet was interrupted by the scrape of metal against brick.
There was Craig, festooned in a winter-defiant red jacket, battling snow with his Great Big Snow Shovel. Barely a doughnut's dusting had settled on the sidewalk, but one can never get started too soon in the battle against accumulations to come.
Lest I be accused of sexist stereotyping, let me tweak the record to reflect that many women were also out clearing sidewalks and unearthing cars no longer identifiable as such. But most women do these things because they must, while men apparently can't wait to do them.
Perhaps it is in times of hardship that men step up to do their best. Parker writes, "Man is never happier than when he is called to action, in other words. That is to say, when he is needed."
Stumble It!
