My life always seems to come down to snow. It is a theme that runs through my little teacher-life, my little story-teller-life. Did you know that I was born during a blizzard? Mason City, Iowa was snowed in during the November blizzard of 1956 when I was born, on this date in the wee hours of the early morning. Some of my most vivid memories happened in the snow. 
There was that night when I was eleven and snow was falling heavily as choir practice at the Methodist Church came to an end. The walk home was more difficult than I had anticipated when I started out. The entire front of me was plastered with snow as I leaned into the wind and trudged like some kind of plodding living snowman. I got as far as the Library on Main Street when Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Kellogg called me into the library to thaw out. They called Mom and Dad to come the three blocks from home and pick me up. But Alicia Stewart was there. The most beautiful girl in all of Rowan, as far as my young heart was concerned. She sat in the row across from me at school. I am fairly certain that my Math grades were so poor mainly from the time I wasted watching her sharpen her pencils and turning the pages in her textbook. I had my Russian snow hat on that night and the ear flaps were pulled down. I had the little bill on the front of the cap pulled down to shield my eyes, and it was caked and dripping with snow as I entered the library.
I pounded off some of the caked snow and said, “Gee, I think it might be snowing outside.”
Everyone laughed.
Alicia pulled up the bill of my cap and looked me right in the eye. “Michael, you are so funny,” she said. That smile she gave me that snowy night warmed my heart, and drove the cold out of even my frozen toes. I still keep the memory of that smile in my heart to this very day, in a drawer where nobody can find it, and I haven’t really ever told anybody about it until here and now.
And snow keeps coming back to find me, even now that I live in Texas where snow is much more of a rare thing. On February 14th, 2003 in Dallas we woke up to another heavy snow flurry.
The people I love most in the world were enthralled. My wife squealed like a little girl. She is from the Philippines and she told me she had never really seen the snow falling before that day. My three kids were awake and romping in the snow almost from first light. The gently falling snow was beautiful, though it was a bit damp and clumpy, falling like goose feathers from a pillow fight, and easily forming into snowballs. We built snow men in front of Tatang and Inang’s house (Filipino for grandpa and grandma). Dorin, Henry, and Cousin Sally were throwing snowballs and random handfuls of snow at me and each other for most of the morning. The Princess, barely walking and talking at that stage of her young life, ate snow and played in it until her bare hands were red and hurting. She threw a crying fit when we had to force her into the house to warm up her hands. Even pain couldn’t make her want to leave the snow behind. I never loved snow that much until I got to see it through their eyes.
I truly believe that one day in the near future the snow will come for me again. I will probably not be living in a place where snow is frequent, so it may not even be real snow. But it will come for me to take me away the same as it brought me to this life. Not real snow, but that obscuring snow that falls as your field of vision fills up with whiteness and purity and fades away. Being in poor health for several years now, I know that sort of snow all too well. I know it will be coming again. The magic of life comes and goes in the clear, cold beauty of snow. And all the warm tangles and troubles of life will be smoothed out under a blanket of pure, white, and cleansing snow.
Write me an epitaph that includes the snow;
He was born in a blizzard,
And he knew the secret of snow.
Catch a Falling Star 
Upon Further Reflection…
My 60th Birthday Self Portrait
Time dictates lots of things. I am not now even the ghost of what I was back then. I look more like Santa Claus than my father or my grandfathers ever did. You may notice that, even with glasses on, I have to squint in order to see who I really am.
It is normal to do a bit of self-examination after a milestone birthday. But I never claimed to be normal. In fact, I doubt after the results of the recent election that you could say I was anything like the common man at all.
I was raised a Christian in a Midwest Methodist Church from a small Iowa farm town. But I have since become something of an agnostic or atheist… not because I don’t believe in God, but because I don’t believe anyone can tell me who God is or how he wants me to be other than me. But I am also not at the center of the universe the way most religious people believe. I believe that all people are born good and have to work at being bad by making self-centered choices and making excuses to themselves for behaving in ways that they know are wrong. God doesn’t forgive my sins because he doesn’t have to. I am tolerant of all people and most things about them. To sum up this paragraph, I am nothing like the dedicated Christians I know and grew up among. The actions of the new, in-coming government and dominant political party convince me that intolerance, self-interest, and rationalizations are the norm.
Sometimes my nose gets really red and my hair bozos out for no particular reason.
I deal with the problems of life by making jokes and forging ahead with carefully considered plans in spite of the doubts others express about my abilities, my choices, and my sanity. I prefer to do something rather than to sit idly by and do nothing. Yet, I never do anything without agonizing over the plan before I take that step. And like the recent election, things usually go wrong. I have failed at far more things in my life than I have succeeded at.
I am told I think too much. I hear constantly that I make things too complicated. People say I should do practically everything in a different way… usually their way. But I inherited a bit of stubbornness from my square-headed German ancestors. In fact, I inherited Beyer-stubborn from my Grandma Beyer. In all the time I knew her, I never saw her change her mind about anything… ever. She was a Republican who thought all Republicans were like President Eisenhower, even Ronald Reagan… but not Barry Goldwater. Someone convinced her that Goldwater was a radical. That was almost as bad as being a Democrat. I, however, have strayed from the Beyer-stubborn tradition enough to change my mind once in a while, though only after carefully considering the facts on both sides of the question. Nixon changed me from a Republican like Grandma into a Democrat. Fortunately, Grandma Beyer loved me too much to disown me.
In my retirement, I have gotten even more artistical than I was before. This is a picture of me with my fictional child Valerie.
So how do I summarize this mirror-staring exercise now that I have passed the 500-word goal? Probably by stating that I do have a vague idea of who I am. But I promise to keep looking in the mirror anyway. One never knows what he will see in the map of his soul that he wears on his face.
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Filed under autobiography, birthdays, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Mickey, self portrait, self-reflection