GAVEL GAMUT
By Jim Redwine
www.jamesmredwine.com
(Week of 17 March 2025)
SPRING, HUMBUG
James Taylor wrote Sweet Baby James in 1970:
“There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
Song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me”
If you side with those who dream of a home in the sky, paradise was populated by Adam
and Eve. Their Garden of Eden was perfect but that did not stop Eve from trying to improve it.
You know, kind of like some wives when spring arrives. Say my wife, Peg, for example. I can imagine the conversation between Adam and Eve.
“Adam, isn’t this idyllic? Everything is just perfect. However, that one tree needs its fruit
plucked. Would you mind just keeping an eye on that serpent while you are lounging around doing nothing?”
It is theoretically possible that was the beginning of humanity’s Rite of Spring where
husbands are cast out of their dens by their wives who are intoxicated from the sight of emerging buds, the feel of damp earth and the smell of humas. I am reminded of Peg’s need to transform our perfect new home with paint and flower beds. Spring should be re-named the season of restless wives and “Honey, could you?” Where in the Constitution is it provided that it is illegal, or at least, unpolitic, for husbands to prop up their feet while waiting for a fish to make a mistake?
What estrogen fueled behavior is it that prevents wives from allowing winter to gently
and slowly thaw its way to autumn and football season? Or as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady asked, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” My guess is that Dr. Louis Leakey only found Lucy and not her mate in Olduvai Gorge because she had her husband off performing some springtime chore. Nothing has changed in a few hundred thousand years.
Now, it may not be that the female response to spring is responsible for all the world’s
troubles but I think it goes without question that Peg’s incessant activities both in our cabin and our yard interfere with my desire to fish our pond and watch Gunsmoke reruns. I will leave it to you, Gentle Reader, at least those of you of the testosterone persuasion, what else could it be?
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