Every year, about the middle of August, he shows up. Early in the morning, in the east, just before dawn. Ugh! Bad enough school is going to be starting soon and now this! Weatherman is calling for lows in the 40's on Tuesday night. Too soon!
Late summer is in full swing still. The landscape is lush and crops are ready to be harvested but his appearance acts as a reminder that the hot and languid summer days we've been experiencing won't be around much longer. Fall is right on our doorstep.
Talkin' about Orion, the constellation. Unmistakable. Like the Big Dipper.
Old Man Winter
McKayla Crump- Unsplash.com
From the time you first spot Old Man Winter there's dread deep in your gut because he's relentlessly on the march, that's for damn sure, and by Christmas he'll have climbed well up into the nighttime sky and be looking down on you, you standing there looking up and probably shivering in your snorkel parka in some cold outdoor clime, like I usta live in, when I was growing up.
It was likely by then for it to have snowed many times and if it just had, nothing was more still- or chill- than a winter evening after a snowstorm hit when the clouds had departed and the sky, bereft of insulation or any moonlight, was at its darkest and lit only by shimmering stars. Off to Old Man Winter's right always were the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, visible to the naked eye. Bluish, they are, and tightly clustered together.
But they're small compared to even the belt of Orion, consisting of three stars lying in a crooked row. Scientists tell us that like the Pleiades, there's a nebula in there, a place of dust and gas where stars are born. "Maybe I oughta pull out a telescope and look at that" I many times thought, but it was always too damn cold.
By the time my birthday arrived Old Man Winter was at his absolute zenith in the night sky. This was my annual reminder that it was only mid frickin' winter and there was much more to come. I used to look up and call out "Hey there, you old bugger! Happy Birthday to me! It's only ten below zero tonight! More snow, more slush, more ice to slip on, and more frost to scrape off my windshield! Thanks a lot!”.
You'd think there woulda been a solemn holiday like the solstice or something to mark this yearly event, me and the old man squaring off, but no, it was always just us. He had the upper hand at the moment but I knew that after this night would come his slow and steady fall. Every night he'd set in the west earlier. That undeniable evidence would tell me that freezing cold or not, spring was coming.
I won’t forget my hat and gloves again
whereslugo- Unsplash.com
Since those dark winter nights in the frosty northern lands, I have moved away and lived in many places. Old Man Winter has been seen from many different perspectives since then.
I have seen him rise up out of the ocean, big and bad- and kind of haunting, too.
I have seen him from many cities in the U.S, and in different countries. In some places he's high in the sky, in others he's low on the horizon, but, wherever he is, it's winter.
That is, unless you're south of the equator when he's around, like I was once. The sight of the old guy meant it was summertime to those folks, but I never quite trusted that Orion wouldn't throw a cold front my way, me and him having a history goin' way back.
Because I could swear there were times when Betelgeuse, the red giant, on the shoulder of the old man, used to stare directly at me like a fiery red eye, and Sirius, the dog star, low and behind the old man, would nip at my pac boot heels no matter where I went trying to bring frostbite my way but I'm fairly safe from the old man now, living in the tropics like I do. Still, whene'r I see him I know people are shivering somewhere, and I feel for them, 'cuz I know what it's like.
But, take heart, citizens of earth. By late March Orion will be setting with the evening sun, which is a good thing. A very good thing. Old Man Winter will go back to sleep for another year- and you'll be able to pull out your golf clubs, bicycles, and motorcycles again.