December. Winter. Burrrrr! “California dreaming on such a winter’s day.” Yuk! Who needs it? It’s cold, it’s damp, it’s rainy, it’s snowy (depending on where you are). And it’s a pain that a pill can’t reach. We can’t get to places we need and want to be, because of flooding, snow storms, icy roads and refrigerator-cold for a few months. Okay, so California isn’t as bad as Minnesota, Colorado, or Montana in the winter. But no matter what state or country you live in, winter has intermittent negative impacts.
Why can’t we be like bears? Black bears, brown bears, cinnamon bears, white polar bears, grizzly bears, Yogi-bears, and average bears. Take your pick.
We humans pride ourselves as having evolved to be the dominant species in the world. Yet in our evolutionary journey we left one great thing behind. HIBERNATION! Yep, if humans wouldn’t have skipped hibernation, once a year we could crawl into a nice cave-like structure, live off of the extra layers of fat we’d accumulate from non-stop dining prior to the big sleep, and dream the dreams of our unconscious for a few months. Don’t you think that it would be interesting to find out what would happen in many of our dreams if they didn’t come up short of an ending, just before we wake up?
Think about it. Just before winter a bear will gorge itself with food. It’s like a human being at an all-you-can-eat restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Seven days a week, non-stop. Or cook it yourself, and consume all of the recipes, every one of them, from J.D. Rhynes’ Bluegrass Cookbook! Then we’d go into a small, small room, go to sleep for some months, and wake up when nature’s alarm clock went off. If we humans did that we would spend less money on food, gasoline for getting to work (I know, I know, some of you have an electric car), paying bills, and all kinds of outward and inward imposed obligations and regulations, like taxes, bills, and, “Oh no, do I have to exercise again today?”
Oh sure, we’d miss Christmas, New Year’s celebrations, bluegrass stuff like Winter Grass and the CBA’s Great 48 in Bakersfield. And maybe there wouldn’t be that new old Martin guitar or Gibson banjo under the Christmas tree. But that could wait until spring. Couldn’t it? Wow, and there would be less brand new people on the planet for a while due to the short death of procreation while we hibernate. After all, seven billion people on this planet is enough isn’t it, at least for a while? The really big thing we’d all be more than grateful to miss is all the fighting, international conflicts, wars, and cowardly terrorist acts for a short period of time.
Okay, enough of this. I know I bearly got started here, but you get the picture. And, if we meet somewhere for a jam this winter, say like the Great 48 in Bakersfield, California this coming January, when it comes my turn I’ll offer up a song and I’ll sing it in a bear-a-tone voice.
“If we make it through December, everything’s gonna be alright I know.” (Merle Haggard)
