Chapter 55
Mr. Weatherman SAID back in the middle of that terrible agonizin’ heat wave that we would have a nice MILD winter.
Then he got a bad case of watchamacallititis and went off to work in the oil fields for more money.
The hirin’ people forgot to tell the replacee about the prediction and HE decided we would have winter DELUXE.
I never did REALLY believe the first old boy but since he was the boss I left my favorite black sweater packed at the bottom of the trunk.
However, when that three-inch snow fell unannounced it was fairly well evident that we had gotten us another weatherman, so I drug my faithful ancient friend out of its hiding place.
There really isn’t anything special about it. They still make them in the same style these days BUT mine was made years ago BEFORE they started adding that special ingredient to the yarn.
Now my sweater was made before the STUFF was invented so it’s managed to hold together fairly well a good many years. This is MY fifteenth winter for it, and I STOLE it from my husband who wore it to high school in the days when everybody looked like Fonzie!!!
It survived that horrid first year of marriage when it stayed wet from tears shed out of homesickness, self-pity, and raging anger.
It made it through Lemar—tons of burps, long colic-filled nights, and forty thousand hours of bitter cold as I hung diapers on the line to dry.
It lived through those years when Charles was busy getting HIS degree and I worked on my P.H.T.
(Put Hubby Through). IT endured Amy and barely go used to that arrangement before Ginny arrived on the scene—spilled milk, blizzardly Kansas nights loaded with sneezes, sniffles, and fever.
Then it hung on to listen to kids’ arguments and fights, to watch the world change from 99￠ checker games to $40.
00 computerized football, and to witness the arrival of cookin’ bags and microwaves! !
And THAT weatherman thinks my sweater can’t’ survive whatever he can create!
?! Why, it could take a winter in Alaska and still be fit for the winter of ’81—after all it’s been through it might even stay around to see the turn of the century when clothes will self-destruct thirty seconds after the first wearing! !!