this is based upon a real-life event and actually happened this way, but last year, in December 2010; I’d parked it away in the mind until recently, when some of the top contenders for Top DUmmie of 2011 emerged, in time for the Christmas season, when one’s reminded to be hospitable to strangers.the primitive Magi visit franksolich. The other night, about 11:00 p.m., shortly after I’d gone to sleep, the cats inside the house made a wild disturbance, waking me right back up. The cats here are great watch-dogs; when they get discombobulated, it’s a sign mischief’s afoot, and that it’s a good idea to check on things.
Earlier that same day, in late afternoon, a heavy snowstorm had descended upon the Sandhills of Nebraska, and by the time I’d gone to bed, it was a fully-blown blizzard. I looked out the front door, to the front porch, but saw nothing. Shrugging my shoulders, I figured I’d check the back door, too.
Flicking on the light to the back porch, I saw two snow-covered figures standing on the porch, and a third one approaching from the side of the house. Three guys, obviously, and obviously in quite a bit of distress from the cold, the snow, and the wind, and so I opened the door.
I eyed the three of them as they came inside from the back porch and took off their coats, hanging them on a clothes-rack near a furnace register in the kitchen, kept there for that purpose. The first one was an old somewhat rotund hippie with a grey pony-tail, looking very much like hippyhubby Wild Bill. The second one was a slightly-younger but heftier hippie with lachrymosity writ all over his face, looking as if he were going to break out crying at any moment; damn, he looks like Omaha Steve, I thought.
The third one was in his sixties, tall and thin, looking very much like John Lennon would’ve looked if John Lennon were still in this time and place, down even to the small wire-rimmed eyeglasses. Almost a spitting image of the Mineral Man.
There were three of them and only one of me, and even John Lennon outweighed me, but I judged the first two too fat, too decrepit, too wimpish, to pose any physical threat, and the third seemed Gandhian nonviolence personified, so I quit worrying.
I inquired if they wanted coffee or hot chocolate; they indicated coffee was good, and so I turned on the coffee-maker, as they sat at the table in the kitchen, still shivering and trembling from the cold, but not so much. I pulled out from the refrigerator a couple of trays of homemade cookies and brownies given me over the Thanksgiving holiday, and offered that too.
They said some things I interpreted—correctly or incorrectly, I dunno—as mere conversational chitchattery, and kept looking at me in a rather odd way, but I was more interested in what they needed.
They’d been on the highway, and finding the snow making the going difficult, scanned the horizon and saw the shining pole-light to the east, indicating human habitation and possible refuge from the storm, and drove this direction. About halfway to the house, though, they slammed into an invisible snow-bank, and couldn’t get any further.
Using the light as their guide, they then hiked this way, becoming even more encouraged when, through the falling snow, they saw the smaller twinkling multi-colored lighted star perched atop the William Rivers Pitt, beckoning them forward.
They yelled as they approached the house, hoping to rouse anyone within, but evoking no response, they walked around, banging on the windows. No, they hadn’t noticed that the doors were unlocked. It was a pain, walking around the house, having to wade through snow ranging from mid-knee to mid-thigh high, banging on the windows.
Of course, that’s what had disturbed the cats, and wakened me up.
Okay, so they were stuck in a snow-bank. They’d come to exactly the right place, I informed them.
This place is usually the first place in the whole county cleared of snow; I myself have never been snowed in for more than a few hours at a time, I told them. The neighbor and the property caretaker have blades they attach to the fronts of their pick-up trucks, but they both keep their heavy-duty snow-removal equipment out here.
The neighbor’s a farmer, and needs to clear things, and the caretaker makes a great deal of beer-money ploughing snow for other people, so the two of them gingerly plough themselves here, to pick up their heavier-duty stuff, and clear the property and the road to the highway on their way out.
So in the morning, they’d be ploughed out.
But for the meantime, this was night, and so the guests might as well get some shut-eye.
I apologized for the lack of accommodations; there are four other bedrooms in this house, but the furnace doesn’t reach them, and they were, as I showed them, frost-covered, beds, mirrors, bureau-tops, windows, all iced. And so they’d have to stay in the main part of the house, where there was heat.
Which meant the living room or the dining room, both of which are very large. The dining room being nearly all empty carpeting, they opted for the living room, where there’s a couch and a recliner, a new one I’d just gotten a couple of weeks ago at the thrift store in the big city.
The pony-tail and the weeper argued about who was to get the reclining-chair, as the couch, in two sections was deemed the less desirable of the two. John Lennon had indicated he was fine with sleeping on the floor, in a sleeping bag with cushions underneath, but the Wild Bill lookalike and the Omaha Steve lookalike each alleged “back problems†that made the reclining chair imperative.
The argument over the couch and the recliner resolved, I showed the thermostat to the Mineral Man lookalike, telling him he could set it as he wished. I had it at 55 degrees, but thought it might be a bit too cool for them.
John Lennon signed me, “But aren’t you cold yourself—you don’t have any clothes on.â€
To which I replied in spoken English, “faulty body thermostat; it takes a lot to get me cold,†after which I went into the bedroom and went to sleep.
I slept until late—there isn’t a whole lot else one can do when one’s snowed in—and woke up expecting to find the three guests still slumbering away, but they were gone. The blankets had been folded up nicely and the pillows neatly stacked, and oddly, there was a twenty-dollar bill on the dining-room table.
They had at least had some coffee before leaving, which was good.
I checked out the door, seeing that obviously the neighbor and the property caretaker had been here, as part of the front had been cleared, and my own car was free. So the guests had probably gone with them, to get their own vehicle out of the snow, I figured.
I figured correctly, because when the neighbor returned about mid-morning to store away his big machine, he told me that yeah, he and the caretaker had taken the three back to their hippiecar, gotten it out of the snow, and treated them to biscuits-and-gravy at the bar in town.
I mentioned the twenty-dollar bill on the dining room table.
“Oh, that,†he commented; “they were so grateful you let them in, and they wanted to leave a couple of twenties for the hospitality, but I told them money means nothing to you. But they insisted.â€
I inquired who they were.
“Well, they didn’t say much about themselves, other than that they were from Missouri,†the neighbor said. “In fact, practically all they talked about was you.
“The tall skinny one had finally figured out you couldn’t hear after about half an hour, but the two heavy ones had no idea until he said so this morning while we were having breakfast.
“I guess it kind of freaked them that you let them in right away, and didn’t seem leery of them at all.â€
“I’m a good judge of character,†I reminded the neighbor; “I knew they were okay.â€
“They wondered, though,†the neighbor replied; “didn’t you feel threatened by them?â€
“Well, if I thought there was something wrong, they would’ve had to spend the night on the floor in the kitchen, sleeping in their coats,†I said, “and there’s always the handy-dandy 1-3/8†S/K adjustable wrench within reach, but remember, I’m a good judge of character.â€
Either that, or just very lucky, the neighbor offered.
“Look,†I said; “I’ve always been lucky. As far as I know, I’ve been the luckiest person I’ve ever met.
“And what use is luck, if one doesn’t use it?â€
