Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

This column is being composed in one of the upstairs rooms in my house Saturday morning.

I have just risen from a night of slumber, looked out the window and I'm now trying to put off shoveling the snow.

This comes from a man who had dared hope we were done with the white stuff for another year. I should have known better.

In our climate, the thought of getting snow, even a lot of it, on or around the Ides of March is far from unreasonable. But still, one is allowed to hope, and even spread the word to others. My neighbour and I were even joking about it Thursday evening. The lucky fellow has a young son who had his first taste of snow shoveling a couple of weeks ago, and from what I was told, he was enjoying it so much he didn't want to go in. I guess he was just looking for more snow to shovel.

I had set aside my winter coat, in favour of something lighter. Good thing I haven't put it away yet.

I had reverted to wearing shoes instead of boots. This was after determining the boots that have served me well for a couple of winters have just about had it. A hole has developed in the right one that I have been assured can't be fixed. Not a major deal, since I'm old enough and wise enough to know that nothing lasts forever. But I am wondering as I type whether I should should risk getting my feet wet (at least my right foot) when I go out today, or come up with some alternate arrangement.

I've even turned on the air conditioning in my car a couple of times in recent days, although I've got the idea I won't be doing that again for a while. It still works.

I was even letting my mind wander to thoughts of yard work, and other nice weather chores that need to be done around the house. We planted a little evergreen tree (a Christmas gift from Beth's brother and his family) in our back yard in January, before all the snow started, and it seems to be doing just fine. Beth has since named it Pierre (please don't ask me why). We also planted a lilac bush last year, a little late for its blooming cycle. The plant seems to be healthy, but I'm the kind of guy who needs proof, such as lilacs.

Oh yeah, it won't be long before Beth wants me to get the barbecue out.

We Canadians are supposed to be a tough bunch, able to handle the fickle nature of the weather gods. And we should know very well that unexpected dumpings of snow do occur at this time of year. Wasn't it just two years ago that we got hit in the first couple of days of April. I got myself stuck twice in one day driving through that.

So I admit I had no business believing or hoping that we were done with the snow for another season. Indeed, the truth is anti snow people like me did get off kind of easy this year. We had very little shoveling to do until well into the new year. True, there were some heavy falls, and a couple of days when I had to shovel my driveway twice, which is usually an effective way to put me in a bad mood. In fact, I think there was one day when I had to shovel three times, but I'm not sure. Remember, you are reading the words of a man who just woke up on a Saturday morning.

And it wasn't a bad year in terms of falls on the fanny, as least as far as I was concerned. Indeed, I think there was only one, if we don't count the flop I took a couple of weeks ago while I was giving curling a try.

But the treacherous walking conditions did result in me taking a major flip. It was a doozy, occurring in the wrong place at a bad time and, as things turned out, it was expensive.

It happened as I was departing an event at Queen's Park. If one is going to part company with one's dignity, one might as well go all the way and do it in the shadow of the Provincial Legislature.

I was crossing Queen's Park Circle, and had just stepped into the intersection when the lights had changed. Since I was in a bit of a hurry, I elected to run the rest of the way and I soon noticed that my footing was playing tricks with me in the snow and slush. It was one of those occasions when most of my attention was directed to keeping my balance, with the rest of it being aimed at getting my carcass out of the intersection before some frustrated rush hour motorist let me have it. Suddenly, one of my sliding feet hit something solid, throwing what little balance I had left out of balance. That's a fancy way of saying I tripped in the snow.

I went sprawling headfirst into the snow, sliding into curb that I had been trying to reach in a more conventional fashion. I was able to pull myself off the traveled portion of the road, allowing traffic to proceed. Then I started to determine if I was able to stand - I was.

There were only a couple of witnesses to this little stunt, and one of them (a young woman) showed concern for my well-being.

"Are you alright?" she called out to me.

If you're going to make a fool of yourself, do it with gusto.

"Pretty good, huh?" I replied, trying to appear jaunty.

The poor lady seemed at a loss for a response.

"Very . . . er . . . graceful" she said.

I guess it was.

My stiff neck developed the following day obligating me to make copious use of a heating pad for a couple of evenings.

I realized how expensive this fall was a couple of hours later, when I arrived back at the office and consulted my wristwatch to see what time it was, and discovered to my horror that it wasn't there. I spent a couple of frantic minutes searching my car, and realized there was only one way it could have fallen off. The strap must have snagged on something when I fell and broke. It was dark by this point and the thought of hustling back to Queen's Park to conduct a search didn't make a whole lot of sense. Someone would surely have picked it up by then.

Pity, because I received the watch as a going-away present when I left a job 13 years ago.

But nothing in life is permanent, including procrastination.

I'd better go shovel the snow now.