Renaissance Redneck: Winter wonderment

By DAVID KITTREDGE
By David Kittredge

As I gaze out my window and watch the massive two-inch snowflakes falling to the ground, I am reminded of a morning, long ago. I was five years old and I was asking my mother for permission to go outside and play in the snow that had blanketed the front yard. She promptly told me no, that I couldn’t go outside for fear that I might get dirty because a photographer was coming to the house that afternoon to take my portrait.

Like most boys at that age, I was unimpressed and was upset that I was to be imprisoned for a term of half a day. Upon learning of my dreary fate, I climbed onto a chair and longingly looked out the window onto our front yard imagining the sorts of fun I could be having if I could free myself of these matriarchal bonds that had been thrust upon me. As I scanned the snow-covered lawn which served as the front yard for a block of eight apartments, I noticed at the far end a miraculous vision fit for a Christmas card.

My urge to get outside became overwhelming.

I needed to get outside to inspect this newly materialized creation for myself. So I began to plead with my mother to allow me to go outdoors promising with all my mother-loving heart that I would not get dirty. I could be a persistent little boy or as some might say, a brat, in those days.

At last I was triumphantly able to wear my poor mother down until she agreed to let me escape with the condition that I stay clean and neat for the afternoon photography session. I explained further to her that it would be almost impossible for me to get dirty anyway while playing in the snow.

Fully encased, cocoon-like, in my snowsuit and complementary winter gear, I headed out the front door and scampered down the long driveway toward my newly spied discovery. It was a snowman, a thing of absolute beauty. I found it perfect in every way. It was just like the one I had seen on the back cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine in an advertisement for Coca-Cola.

As I neared the sculpture, the snowman towered over me, making me feel quite small as I basked in its presence. I considered myself somewhat of an authority on snowmen, although I had failed many times in my endeavors to actually build one. But, I rationalized in my five-year-old mind that I was an expert because I knew exactly what a snowman should look like and this one hit the mark.

This snowman had it all: size, symmetry and all the associated accouterments. It had a knit cap tilted slightly on its head, black anthracite coal eyes that shown like ebon diamonds, animating its countenance with their reflective light and a carrot for a nose perfectly placed above a corn cob pipe. I could even see smoke flowing from the pipe until I realized that it was actually my own breath that I saw. Mr. Snowman had a bright red knitted scarf wrapped snugly against its neck and coal for buttons placed on the mid section.

Just as I was imagining myself drinking from a bottle of Coke to complete my snowscape vision of wonderment, I was rudely interrupted by voices yelling behind me. I turned to see two of the neighbor boys approaching. They were claiming that I was standing too close to the snowman and that it was their property.

Humph!

One of the boys was my age and the other younger, so I knew there was no way that they could have made this snowman. I proceeded to mention this fact to them. They explained that their mother had helped them build it. I was immediately incensed, my mind went wrong, I was jealous, I was angry that they had cheated and at the same time I was also flabbergasted that I had not thought of asking my own mother for help. I felt my only recourse was to insult this thing that their mother had made for them and I made a comment about the ridiculous carrot that was used for the nose by saying that it probably should have been placed much lower on the snowman’s body. The oldest boy launched an attack on me in defense of his mother and his property. As we wrestled and threw occasional blows, I was holding my own when the younger brother laced me in the face with a toy, metal rake. Well, I decided that I had about as much fun as I could endure for one morning and I retreated back home to my mother’s waiting arms.

My mother must have heard me coming as I clamored up the staircase, bawling and wailing at the top of my lungs when she met me at the door. My face was covered in blood and I’m sure it looked much worse than it was but she was seeing red — figuratively and actually. My poor mother was mostly upset with me for not having lived up to my promise of staying unsoiled. The photographer was due any minute now and she had to wash my blood soaked face, change my blood stained shirt and address my wounds, which were only a couple of not-so photogenic flesh wounds.

Finally, the photographer made the scene with my mother still in an emotional tizzy and me with my battle scarred puss. Once he understood what was happening, he started to laugh uproariously and then told my mother that one day she would look back on this day and laugh about it.

“I don’t think so,” she said with a tone that caused him to change the subject and to quell his merriment. Although, I noticed he still couldn’t help but smile a little when she wasn’t looking. I liked this guy.

That photo of me never made it to a place of prominence in our family home such as an end table or a wall but was instead tucked away for safekeeping, if you want to believe that. I would occasionally mention the photograph and the surrounding circumstances just to tease my mother over the years. Even when I was a teenager my mother would only groan when I brought up the subject. In my late twenties I again broached the subject and that time she managed a little smile. And then she groaned in exasperation.

I suspect she was still trying to prove that photographer wrong.