I Have Seldom Been Right

I read once that, "No man is a saint is his own land and no man is ever a hero to his wife." I believe there is a grain of truth in that.

I'd love to kid you and tell you that I once saved Flannery from a ring of white slavers, or halted a war by getting the factions to sit down and drink a few beers together but that would be a lie.

I was right in front of my wife once, and that is like making Haley's comet appear out of nowhere. Gentleman, back me up here...

Flannery and I had only been married a short while at the time and I had whisked her off to my country home in Licking County, Ohio which left her far from the comforts of city life and civilization. We lived in the stone house that I had grown up in and were starting out on our uncertain married life there. We had two incomes, no kids, and life was rolling along nicely.

What she couldn't understand was my evening forays into the woods after work each evening. "What are you doing?" she would ask. "I'm going to go cut wood," I'd respond. "What for?" she asked bewilderly. "I've got to cut wood for this winter," I said with the casualness that this was as obvious as the nose on her face. "It's June!" she remarked. "No better time," I responded as I slipped two beers and a handful of Starbursts candies into my pockets.

After a week of this odd behavior, her curiosity got the better of her. She waited an hour after I had gone and then set out to find me. It wasn't hard. She hiked up the hill across the road and followed the sound of a saw cutting into wood and my swearing. In five minutes time she located me about one hundred yards from the house.

"Whatcha doing?" she queried as she hiked up the steep grade.

I wiped my brow and took a long pull at my can of Budweiser. "Cuttin' wood," was all I could say as I wipped the foam from my lips.

"Huh," she responded, as she was unimpressed by my progress. I had managed to cut through a large tree (19 to 23 inches wide) with only a bow saw as I refused to purchase a chain saw out of sheer contempt and the lack of funds. I hated the noise and even more so, I hated to unleash the fumes on an already beleaguered planet. With the bow saw, I needn't spend money on going to the gym and I could keep us warm this winter. It was win-win.

Flannery's "Huh" was an affront to my ego and my lifestyle. I felt obliged to defend myself and my way of life to my new bride. I had been mildly insulted and I felt that I needed to quell the unrest right here, so I pointed to a forked tree not twenty yards off.

"You see this here dead tree I've been sawing on for an hour?" she nodded her head and appraised the dead tree that I'd been cutting at.

"Do you see that forked tree twenty yards yonder?" she nodded her head.

"I'm going to drop this tree and let it fall to where it is going to strike this second tree in the crotch and split in half, and I can thereby drag it into the front lawn of our yard and cut it up in at my liesure."

"Sure," she nodded as if I told her a tale right straight out of Hans Christian Andersen.

I used a crow-bar that I had to run and fetch to knock over the large tree, but the result was just as I predicted. The tree fell and struck the other as I forecasted and the split of the wood was enough to drive the chipmunks and deer from our neck of the woods for a while.

I smiled a knowing smile and made to move this large boost to our winter heating bill down from the hill and to our front yard with the knowledge that I had interpreted this just as it happened.

I congratulated myself on the fact that I had foreseeen the end result, but more importantly, I had had the chance to show my new wife a thing or two. I lugged the pieces down to my front door with the reassurance that I could cut them later and my wife would respect me as if I knew what I was doing.

Gentlemen, treasure this moment while you can. You will find many occasions when she proves you wrong, but always treasure the one chance you had to prove yourself right.

Doc