Musin’s and Thinkin’s – March/April 2010

I have been accused of a lot of things, but disliking the seasons has never been one of them.

The seasons! Even the phrase brings feelings of warmth and bounty to the human heart. The seasons! The syllables chime out like a great and mighty bell whose clapper is the universe itself. The seasons! Like most things, it sounds better if you repeat it three times. What can we say about the seasons that hasn’t already been said?

But seriously, the seasons. Let’s bring the tempo down a little bit. Let’s lower the lights. Let’s get serious for a second. Come over here, yes, right next to me. I won’t bite. I really want to talk to you about the seasons. Can you hear me? I’m whispering because I’m so serious. That’s how serious I am about the seasons. Let me put my arm around you and gaze right into your eyes while I tell you about the seasons. One great thing about the seasons is how many ways you can talk about them. Like, already just now I’ve talked about the seasons in two different ways: lighthearted and somewhat more meditative and, some might say, sexy. But let’s not lose sight of the seasons themselves. That would be the real tragedy. Far too often, people forget about the seasons. They do so much for us. In a way, what would life be without the seasons?

But gadflies walk among us—yes, gadflies, collegians, and raconteurs who claim we’d be so much better off without the false promise of that wayward tart called the seasons. They said it, not me! But I think I understand where they’re coming from. Life is complicated. The Industrial Age happened. Suddenly the seasons aren’t smart enough. Sophistication has taken over, and everybody is so happy about it.

As a result of our complex modern attitudes, some lost souls would rather be miserable than have a good time enjoying the seasons. They are our physicians, our ice-cream vendors, our public intellectuals, our clergymen and teachers. I have a name for such people. Those people are named “jerks.” What do they have against the seasons? Of course life would be horrible without the seasons!

Just imagine: You’d be in a bar, I guess, and some guy would come up to you and want to talk about the seasons, only there wouldn’t be anything to talk about. So the guy goes away, your one chance at friendship. What a sullen picture! Imagine yourself, reflected in the dirty mirror behind the bar. What else are you going to look at? The seasons? Too bad, there aren’t any seasons! All you have to look at is your own ugly mug,...