ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601030042
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
Given the time of the year, I don't have to explain why I started writing like Papa Hemingway again:
A new year, the old man thought. El Ano Nuevo and the wind was merciless, as though you had wronged it somehow and it wished to kill you. There had been brandy in the eggnog but he had longed for calvados.
He walked the hard, frozen ground where once the hated dandelions had grown, and the hard, unrelenting earth made him think of long-ago campaigns.
And when he thought of old campaigns, the old man became anxious and he felt guilt. For it had been the way in those days to make los resoluciones for the coming year. It was said to bring good luck.
"Caramba, mujer," he said to the woman. "Dost thee realize I have made no resoluciones for El Ano Nuevo? Surely, bad fortune will follow if I do not."
"Viejo," the woman said, "thou hast made los resoluciones in anos pasados and have broken them before the 12th day of La Navidad. What is the good in making such vows if they are not adhered to?"
"I was thinking of the winds of March just the other day," the old man said. "And I thought that although these winds are sometimes heartless, they hide behind them the promise of La Primavera - the soft and lovely spring."
The woman sighed as only those who have known darkness, sorrow and folly can sigh.
"Viejo pobre," she said. "How can mortals understand thee when thee jump from vows for the new year to the winds of March? Dost thou possess no span of attencion at all? You are driving me loco by speaking in this non-sequential manner."
"That is it," the old man said with a heat he did not often show. "My first vow will be to speak clearer and not hurtle from subject to subject."
"Mas bueno, mi esposo," the woman said, looking to heaven the way people do when they know looking there is in vain.
"Next, I will resolve to be of neater appearance," the old man said. "I will no longer confront thee on Friday nights with the sauce of the spaghetti making the front of my sweatshirt disgusting."
"Very well, viejo," the woman said. "But I do not think thee can eat of the spaghetti without the spilling of the sauce."
"The poet was right when he called April the cruel month," the old man said, breaking his first vow minutes after its making.
The woman sighed again. "I now await Friday night," she said.
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