Steering into the Skid

Florida as we know it has returned!

The dogs have shed their sweaters and the space heater has been stored.

Yet, I can't help feeling that somehow I've arrived at a different place. Like time has been folded and revealed a permanent alteration in my seasons, the same way my brothers and I used to fold the back covers of Mad magazines to discover an entirely different picture. And in part, I'm not ready to give up the sweaters and mufflers myself; part of me has folded a bit and longs to experience real northern winters again, if only for a few days each year.

This is a first for me. I've been content for years now to say to those who attack our southwest Florida seasons as seasonless, "We have our seasons, you just have to be perceptive enough to recognize them." One needs only to watch a Bald Cypress or Tabebuia tree to know that; however, I secretly find that I'm longing for a different sort of winter than I've enjoyed for the last 20 plus years. I miss the falls and winters of my childhood. Roasting winter vegetables and creating hearty stews seem appropriate when there's a chill in the air; cold salads and seafood on the grill less so.

At minimum, the cold weather we experienced brought me back to some basic advice I received in my youth. I've come to remember driving on snow-covered roads in Northeast Arkansas and my mother's advice: "Always steer into the skid."

Now advice like this is always ripe with metaphoric possibility and adolescent incredulity. Really, Mom? Head for danger? When I'm careening out of control, you want me to steer into the skid? I won't begin to really discuss how I've acted on such advice for the better part of my adult life, but certainly bringing Texas Pete into our home is a good and fairly recent example. We all crave a bit of danger and excitement, sometimes even when it seems inappropriate.

In reality steering into the skid was good advice; my mother was one heck of a driver. She started driving at 13 and I can remember clearly at least three times where she steered into the danger of the road and brought us through to tell about it: a drunk trucker near Marked Tree on a long two-lane bridge, an old wooden bodied Chrysler without any brakes on a steep gravel road in Hardy, and a snow-covered highway near Imboden laden with jack-knifed semis.

But then there's the advice that my mother doled out that seemed inane even at the time she gave it, like "Always wear clean underwear and don't give your real name." Or "Boys are like buses, another one will show up in 15 minutes." Or "There's more to school than books; don't forget boys and recess." If I were to try to describe my mother through these sayings I'd paint an entirely different picture of her personality and general ethics, one that is truly nothing like the extremely loyal and morally conscious person I know her to be.

Maybe she secretly longed to be a bit more wild, a bit more like our Texas Pete, and these sayings gave her a little outlet for that desire. Maybe she wished for a different life, or if not entirely different, one with a different set of seasons at least. It seems to me now that her seasons must have been something like this: Spring, the season of fixing fences, planting a garden, and chasing kids. Summer, the season of fixing fences, working the garden, chasing kids and chasing calves. Fall, the season of cutting the hay, getting it stored, harvesting the rest of the garden, butchering, and chasing kids and any remaining cows. Winter, the season of trying to keep everyone warm and well fed and wishing they were all outdoors. I'm sure there were days when all she wanted was to sleep in a bed she didn't have to make and eat a steak she didn't have a personal investment in.

I sometimes look at Texas Pete and wonder if we've done him any big favor. He is for the most part still a wild animal. Truly. Some days he seems to be moving toward becoming one of the Marshmallows, folding a little bit after a couple of seasons inside, a little more docile, a little less hostile. A friend suggested that the life he has now is the one he was supposed to live and the time he spent before us a diversion in his path. I love my Zenic friend, but I'm not good at philosophical concepts like this.

But I have a little advice for Pete. "Steer into the skid buddy; we're waiting for you just this side of danger."