LEFT SIDE, RIGHT SIDE, DUM DE DUM

         I wasn't imagining things; I really did hear the 'S' word this morning on WXL34. That's not a U-boat, but rather is the weather radio station on a band my radio titles "VHF Air-HI" on its dashboard. The forecast used to be read by a robot, one of those mechanical voices that repeats your credit card number back to you when you call for information, but now NOAA has either trained its humanoids better, or has real people reading aloud again.

         "Becoming cloudy this afternoon with showers developing, turning into snow showers after midnight with a light covering possible by morning," or that's what I think it said. Last night the humans on television only mentioned possible accumulation in what are referred around here as "hill towns." I have never been sure what a 'hill town' is; I live near the top of a hill, but there is no town around me, so I discount the warning. This latest forecast expands the outlook; the rest of us have been indicted. I am afraid to tune in again; HAL might be forecasting six inches by now.

         Better to retreat inward. The right side of the brain is wondering what VHF Air-HI is, but the processing department on the left is recalling the first snows of other years. October four years ago I lived in southeastern Pennsylvania, where the simple mention of S-N-O-W sent every member of the community over age thirty to stores to clean them out of bread and beer. The next October we were here, but I was in Pennsylvania again, preparing to sell our house. I returned to take Morgan for a follow-up with the doctor about her touch of pneumonia. That was the day he found her arrhythmia. We had no snow that winter until a day in mid-January when pneumonia returned and I had to take her to the hospital in a snowstorm.

         October two years ago she was hospitalized again, not to return home until Thanksgiving. She was only here until after the New Year. That was a snowy winter, with many thirty-mile trips on I-90 to visit Morgan. It's a story I've told through many emails, monologues and in my mind. The left side always insists on getting the facts right, but Morgan knew better. She ‘drew on the right side of her brain’ to teach art at one time. It was her way to look at the world. Last year, in my first winter without my wife, I found using the right side a great comfort.

         Was there snow last winter? Everyone, including my woodpile, talks about how mild it was. I have almost a cord left from my delivery last November. I'm burning some now. Usually at this time of day, I take my newspaper and sit in the sunny living room, but today there is no sun and the house is chilly. On the table at the end of the couch is a scrapbook. Its cover is embossed, but the material is a type of pressed paper or cardboard. I brought it out Sunday a week ago when Pam was here, showing me her scrapbook with wonderful wooden covers.

         I found the book after my father died. He was Member Number 221221 of the International Broadcasting Club of Portland Place, London, England in 1935. He would tune in on his short wave radio and pick up the signals of foreign stations. Then he would notify them by postcard and they would confirm by return post. He pasted his last postcard from a radio station into the book in 1936. After that, everything seemed to cease.

         The cards came from Cuba, Columbia, England, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Russia and Japan. Even the International Wireless Telephone Company of Japan, Ltd. sent a greeting to his North Philadelphia home, wishing him a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for 1935-36. Makes the right side of my brain wonder. Did Dad participate in their IPO? Was he ruined when the Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere tanked? Is that why he stopped his hobby?

         Pam was fascinated; she thought her boss would love to see the book. I should have lent it to him; in the absence of my father, he could have probably explained "VHF Air-HI" to me. I'm sure he would have done a better job than my Dad. Dad was the worst instructor in the world, but enough of my father; the right side of my brain doesn’t want to belabor the poor teacher today. It’s busy picturing the dog romping in the snow while Pam and I build a snowman on the front lawn. It’s imagining the two of us sitting on my couch, drinking tea and looking out the window at the drifts piling up on the road, listening to the dog barking at the plow as it goes by. It’s feeling the warmth of the quilts piled on top of us as we snuggle in bed.

         Romantic vision and lyricism are typical of the right side. The left side remembers that the snow blower is in the back of the garage behind the mower and brush cutter. The left side knows that Pam hates to drive in snow, so that one meeting last winter was put off because of the threat of flakes. The left side realizes that snow is the enemy of our long distance friendship. Heavy wet snow can take down telephone lines, or cut electric so that we can’t even communicate with each other, let alone visit.

         Old practical left side has me telephone the auto dealer in Pittsfield and make an appointment to get the oil changed tomorrow. Sensible me even mentioned rotating the tires to the man on the phone. Lefty has put a sticker by the phone to remind me to call the wood dealer to order a cord or two. There’s no telling how cold this winter will be; there was a woolly-bear caterpillar out front the other day.

         Left side has a constant fight on its hand. Through its efforts, the antibiotics were organized in daily pill compartments. As I finished the dishes, old practical whispered, “Don’t forget your pill, and remember you need to take a lot of water with it.” I was still savoring the jambalaya I made for dinner, and thinking about my pre-meal phone conversation with Pam. My brain raced ahead to our next meeting and visualized the things we would do. On autopilot, I poured out a pill and took it to this room, where I put it next to the computer. I went back to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. Something kicked my shin. It was the part of the brain that thinks. “Hey dummy, take a look, you are going to take a second One-A-Day vitamin instead of your medicine.”

         “David, you idiot!” I said to myself,"Pull yourself together." I liked to think that I could be serious and get some work done, but I could sense on my shoulder this spokesperson for the right side. In a voice that was part Eddie Haskell, part my seductress, it purred “Time to stop typing and listen to the weather forecast. And see if you have a carrot for the snowman’s nose.”

Valatie, October 22, 2002