Dec. 29: Snowmen

One winter day in Rosebud, Sue and I decided to make a snowman. After a breakfast of bacon and Ovaltine, we met in front of the Legg House, which was also the girls dorm, and started to make our snowman. Sue insisted that the snowman be exactly five foot nine and three quarter inches tall. I acquiesced, even though I knew the snowman would be taller than me. 

When the snowman was done, we found some rocks to serve as eyes and mouth and an old toque to be a hat. I found a big long stick to be the snowman's arms and Sue went back into the Legg House to get a carrot. Now the snowman had a nose.

We looked at the snowman. Then Sue sang Frosty the Snowman. I didn't sing because I am a lousy singer. Sue is not a lousy singer. Sue has perfect pitch. She knows that Frosty the Snowman is in the key of C and that the first note is a G and that the next notes are E, F, then G again and then a high C. 

When Sue was done singing Frosty the Snowman, our snowman did not come to life. This surprised neither of us as we weren't expecting that sweet and secular Christmas song - which was written by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson - to be an incantation. We knew that Frosty was not a Frankenstein monster. He was made of snow. That's it.

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Later, while drinking Dr. Pepper and root beer at the Drumheller pool hall, Sue asked me if I thought the legend of Frosty was frightening.

"It's always presented like kids would be delighted if something they sculpted out of snow came to life," Sue said. "But I think it would be the opposite. I should think the kids would be terrified."

"I also think that," I said. "Imagine if they built a dinosaur out of snow. It would go around eating everyone. Imagine if they built a New Democrat out of snow. It would go around raising our taxes."

"That frightens me," said Sue. "Can we go to Horseshoe Canyon?"

"Yes," I said. But only because I knew there were snowmen there.

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To the best of my knowledge, that is the only time I remember snowmen being built in Rosebud. Of course I was only there for a very brief time - late 1991 until the spring of 1992. That means that I spent one winter in Rosebud and it was a cold one. I was a part of Rosebud's first ever Christmas variety show. The second act was the Rosebud choir singing Vivaldi's Gloria. I worked my tone deaf ass off to be a part of that choir but, I have to be honest here, I mostly lip synced. I was aware that the human beings around me were using their vocal cords to make beautiful sounds. I was also aware that I had neither the talent, nor the training, to replicate those beautiful sounds. So I lip synced (except for one part of the final movement where I knew I had the notes down pat) and, at the end, I basked in the applause along with the rest of the choir. I always tried to be the first off the stage. I didn't think I deserved the applause as much as Sue and the others did.

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At the time, Rosebud was a Christian Theatre Guild School. Almost all of the plays done there were original scripts. It is not like that today. It's a lot of commercial scripts like Steel Magnolias, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Godspell. I have to say that I don't like it. I prefer the pre-Internet era when Rosebud was all about earthy creativity, not trying to put a Christian stamp on largely secular shows. I feel I have no right to make such criticism as I am barely even an alumni of that school, though it still owns a corner of my heart.

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I never made a living in the theatre. Today, I make a living in the newspaper industry. I can't tell you how many times I have taken pictures of people making snowmen.

Why not? It's an easy picture to take. You're outside in the winter, when lighting conditions are optimal. You're taking pictures of people who are in a good mood. For the most part, you're taking pictures immediately after Christmas when no one has any money to do anything except go outside and build snowmen. I'd like to do a study to see how many newspaper front page pictures in the first two weeks of January feature snowman under construction.

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Upon arrival at Horseshoe Canyon in January of 1992, I was disappointed to see that there were no snowmen. Eight years later, I would try to visit Horseshoe Canyon again only to discover that parts of it had been closed off by a film crew. The movie that was being made was I'll Be Home for Christmas starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who is a vegetarian.

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It shouldn't surprise anyone that, thanks to capitalism, you can buy a snowman kit. If you don't want to sacrifice a scarf, if you can't find a hat, and you don't feel like scavenging for coal or branches, all you have to do is visit WalMart (or Amazon or LL Bean or Berk's Fried Chicken) and pony up about thirty-five buckaroos. And there you go. Instant snowman.

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Listen:

Right across the street from the Legg House was the Rosebud Community Hall. Although I had been in Rosebud for more than half a year, I had only seen the hall used for one purpose, which was to host informal floor hockey games. Most of the people who played in these games were students and staff at the school, though sometimes non-school members showed up.) There was a farmer, some bald guy in his late 40s, who showed up with his 10-year-old son. The farmer would always play goaltender and the son would always play forward. Neither one of them ever said a word to anyone. Once, the son felt he had been unfairly taken off the floor hockey ball and he began shoving one of the players around the room. The player was one of my fellow students, a little older than I was. After a few shoves, he grabbed the son by the wrist, pulled him close, and whispered something short and fierce in his ear. Immediately, the son stopped shoving and played the rest of the session as if he were holding back tears.

The father/goaltender/farmer watched this exchange with the indifference of a man watching a dog peeing on a tree. Maybe he knew his son was a bit of a spoiled brat. Maybe he appreciated someone else taking up the parenting helm every now and then. And maybe he just didn't care.

No idea if father and son ever made a snowman together.

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The farmer and his son exited my life in late 1991 and, as far as I know, our paths never crossed again. This is mostly true of everyone we meet. The other day, while in a travel plaza near Casselman, I asked a lady waiting in line at the Pizza Hut kiosk if she knew what time it was. She did and, upon sharing that information with me, I ascertained that I did not have enough time to get my kid a pizza if we were to make it to our swimming session on time. I thanked the lady and now, like the farmer and her son, she has exited my life. I have no idea why this fascinates me so much. Maybe I just hate knowing that our time is so finite and that most of our relationships will not last as long as the snowman that Sue and I made in front of the Legg House sometime in early 1992.

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Today Sue is married and living in central Alberta. She showed me a picture of her and her husband and their son and his girlfriend doing Christmassy things in a kitchen somewhere. They were not building a snowman.

I might build a snowman with my kid this winter. Since he is autistic, I will have to break everything into little steps. When we are done, I will tell him where to put the carrot, the eyes, and the corncob pipe. Then we will take a picture. It will probably be the photo of the day.

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I am not the first person to link the temporal nature of snowmen with the fleetingness of life. My hero, Charles Schulz, used it several times in his Peanuts comic strip. In one of them, Snoopy is having a heart-to-heart conversation with a snowman next to his doghouse. Then the sun comes out and the snowman begins to melt. Thankfully, so many of us were prepared for this sad reality in kindergarten thanks to the following poem:

I'm a little snowman

short and fat

here are my buttons

here is my hat

when the sun comes out

I cannot play

slowly

I just melt away.

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It is entirely conceivable that if I built a snowman at the South Pole in 1977, it would still be standing today. The sun would not have gotten to it, though the penguins might. The same could be said for Tracy Cernan, who achieved some sort of immortality when her father, the astronaut Gene Cernan, wrote her initials in the dust on the moon in 1972. As there are no atmospheric disturbances on the moon, it is likely that her initials are still there.

Obviously, I am in the realm of metaphors right now so perhaps we should think of the moon as heaven.

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The current temperature in Alexandria is minus 2 degrees Celsius. There is snow outside but not enough to build a snowman or go sledding or any of that winter fun. I am mindful of my oft-repeated belief that we celebrate Christmas too early. It would be better if Christmas Day was February 28 rather than December 25. Most of us hate the winter and we go back to being our grumpy selves once Boxing Day rolls around.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have coloured lights and tinsel and all of those trappings throughout the entire winter? We'd have something to look forward to for all of January and of  February. We'd have more excuses to get outside, go skating and visit the meadow where we can... wait for it... build a snowman.