The world has so many problems that some days merely getting out of bed is one of the labors of Hercules. I personally take an hour to put on my fawn skin these days.
My old black Labrador "Roscoe" who is 14 has the right idea. He moves ever so slowly out into the yard and then he eats snow.
I remember as a child in New Hampshire the glory of eating snow.
Okay. I don’t eat snow anymore. For one thing: I can’t identify the yellow patches.
For another thing: it’s unseemly for a grown man to get down on his knees and put his head in a snowdrift.
"Look Mommy! The blind man who lives next door has lost his head!"
Mommy: "It’s not polite to stare Honey."
Yes, and it’s no fun eating snow when you’re wearing a fawn skin.
But Roscoe has the right idea.
Take advantage of the small blessings.
I once had a friend who was an esteemed history professor. He actually looked like an eminent professor–gray hair, glasses, a little slumped from a life at the desk.
Anyway, one night we were both rooming together in a New York City hotel because our flight was canceled, etcetera. And while I was brushing my teeth, Frank went out into the corridor without explanation.
When he came back he had sandwiches, grapes and a bowl of fruit salad.
Frank had taken these items from the room service trays outside various rooms.
"It’s all still good," he said. "People give away all kinds of good things in America."
I told Frank that he was really a poet.
I miss Frank. He’s been gone now for about ten years. Students at the college where he taught will find his vast collection of books in the library. They will see some of his margin notes written in pencil. They will profit handsomely from being in the presence of a mind that wrestled ardently with Aristotle.
But they won’t know Frank was a poet.
And I suspect Frank would have eaten snow if it looked clean enough.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
This post reminded me of just how oblivious most Americans are to our great wealth. A visit to a Third World Country or thoughtful post like this are great reminders. It also made me laugh at myself for at the end of the school year I go to the lost and found at my son’s school and go shopping. The quality of clothes with no name tag is staggering. While I have never found designer pants, I always come away with a high ticket item like a rain jacket, and once to my great delight a Spyder ski jacket–something my son wore and promptly lost!
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Hi Andrea: Yeah, Frank was really cool. He could talk about the Etruscans while munching on a souvlaki that someone had left on a plate at an adjacent table. That’s exactly the way to live. Your designer Italian jeans remind me that in Spain in Salamanca, the oldest university town, you can go to the flea market and find exactly this kind of thing for pennies on the Euro. It amazes me that people not only throw away these splendid things, but they fail to imagine how, by donating things to Goodwill they are cheating the world not once but twice. And they don’t even know they’re ripping off their own souls as well. Great story!
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I think I’m in love with Frank. . . .
Living in Los Angeles has made me understand first hand just how many things Americans throw away! A woman in our apartment complex moved away a couple of months ago and put huge trash bags full of clothes and shoes by the dumpster! So I hauled them all inside to take them to Goodwill, and found 2 pairs of designer Italian jeans that were just my size. So now I own designer jeans whoo hoo! And if I were with Frank, I would eat other people’s room service too.
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