ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610280111
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
A FAT, little groundhog is trundling around the yard, packing it in for all he's worth before he goes underground to sleep away the season.
This is the fattest groundhog I've ever seen. He can barely walk. The other day I went out onto the front porch and surprised him next to the yucca a mere three feet away. He stood there stupified for a moment, then tried to run. Gallumph, gallumph, gallumph. This groundhog is too fat to run.
And yet, he continues to eat. He grazes over what's left of the clover out by the barn. He nibbles his way through the greenery under the big pines at the side of the house. He snacks on cinquefoil and ground ivy around the base of the yucca. Eat, eat, eat. He's gonna have enough stored up to sleep six months or more by the time he gets his fill.
Occasionally he sticks his head out from beneath the barn and looks around lazily .. sleepy already. You can see him thinking: What shall I eat today? Or maybe he's thinking: Oh, do I have to eat again?
How much wood would this woodchuck chuck, if this woodchuck could chuck wood? Enough to keep his woodstove going strong until April, I think. Enough for a very long winter.
I look at this fat, fat groundhog and I envy him. Think how nice it would be to sleep away the winter. Snug in a hole somewhere, warm and sweetly fetid, losing weight without any effort.
Sigh.
Now, groundhogs are about my least favorite creatures on earth. They're greedy. They're ugly. They're possessed of beady little eyes. And so for me to feel something for a groundhog as rash as envy well, you can tell what I think of winter coming on.
All the signs, I'm told, predict a bad one. Twenty feet of snow. Ice storms that last from Thanksgiving till Easter. Cold. Cold. Cold.
The caterpillars are mostly black. Or, they're black on both ends. Or maybe, they're not black enough; I can never remember exactly which means what. I have noticed, however, that they're huge and fuzzy and sluggish.
And that all the groundhogs are fat. Too fat to run. Also, that the autumn fogs - those predictors of winter snows - are relentless.
Winter's coming on.
And, oh, I'm not ready for snow tires yet! I don't want to wear a coat!
It's got me so crazy that I'm fantasizing about snoozing away the season beneath the barn, oblivious to the scratchings of mice in the walls, immune to the wind and the rain and the cold, heedless of power failures. It's got me so crazy that I'm envying of all things! a groundhog.
Now, there ought to be a way to work a moral out of this story. Something about the charm of all creatures, and their place in creation. Even groundhogs. Something about the passage of time being sweeter than the stoppage of time. Something about the beauty of the changing seasons.
But danged if I can think of one.
All I can think is: What in the world has gotten into me, that I'm envying for pity's sake .. . groundhogs?
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB