It was a chilly 38 degrees at lunch time yesterday. Better than 37, but a far sight off my favorite minimum temperature, 85.

This guy comments, “Yeah, but it fits the season.” 

“That depends,” I said.

* * *

I grew up a Rust Belt kid. The make up of my cosmos was smokestacks, power lines, train horns and low, low cost fun. If it was thirty-eight degrees on 12-23, it usually meant one thing – a heat wave with Great Packing Snow. GPS, we called it.

Powder snow sucked, though it was fun to play in, even if the temperature was between zero and fifteen. Can’t do much with it except look at it.

Good packing snow (never called GPS) was light and airy, with just enough moisture to hold together well, and I figure it was good between 25 and 32 degrees. True connoisseurs of snowballs will point to this as the best temperature for a snowball and one really can’t argue. In the hands of a 14 year old boy with a cannon for an arm (as most 14 year-olds own), those snow balls fly like BB’s, but there is no ‘oomph’ behind them. By far the best snowball snow was heavy, wet snow…the kind manufactured by 38 degrees and sunshine. 

Sunshine was the added bonus, you see? It usually disappeared around the 20^th of November and stayed away until about the 20^th of February. So when it showed in December AND there was sun? Endless fun; thank you, Jesus, and it went something like this.

We’d play basketball and easily within 20 minutes we’d have our coats stripped off, shooting light OUT with t-shirts, long johns, blue jeans and galoshes. The insides of our hands, though shriveled and nearly frozen like a dead guy’s hands, kept shooting the ball. Invariably someone would catch a pass on the tip of an index finger, and when you jam a cold, wet finger, it’s time out, babe.

We’d run inside the house, rinse our hands in cold water (yes, cold…quickest way to warm your hands is in cold water), dally around, grab some cookies and milk and head back outside. Snowball fight time; a testosterone-fueled happening that ran like this:

All manner of cunning war tactics, complete with momentary alliances, deceptive tosses, and downright treason combine in a tug on the ebb and a push to the flow in battle. Invariably one guy gets drilled in the last place a 14 year old cares to get hit; tempers flare, new cuss words debut - and since they usually flowed off the tongue incorrectly – big laughter follows. Someone’s mom hollers her son in for the night and during the stroll home we devise secret plans for the next day.

* * *

“But if feels like winter,” he said again.

“All except for one thing,” I said softly. “No GPS.”

There was another discussion regarding me “checking with the eye doctor about getting that Lasik or whatever surgery.” I don’t think so.

I grew up with four siblings and we all wore glasses by the third grade. I had a pair of those lovely brown framed, nine pound, thick as coke bottle deals well before I reached a double digit birthday and it was fine. I got called all the names kids with those bad boys get called; didn’t bother me a bit. I valued seeing clearly more than childhood pride.

For about thirty years after that I simply wore my specs. Hard contacts came out, then soft lenses, then this and that and finally the miraculous surgery that could free one from corrective lenses.  Not me.  Stayed with my glasses because they worked, and when it became my responsibility to pay for them, I stayed with them instead of going to contacts because they were cheaper. A few years back the price of contacts dropped, it worked out better money-wise, and I made the switch. No problem. 

Now, ‘they’ are really pushing all manner of eye fixes, prices are down too and so maybe I should look at it?  I don’t think so, but I’ll never say never. Two considerations…

First, you hear commercials for about three main guys who’ve done all this stuff; they’re the official eye surgeon of this Dallas pro team and/or that Dallas pro team. Great.

Who did his eyes?

I don’t think he did his own so if I were to get it done, I don’t want the guy who’s done five thousand eye fixer uppers – I want the doctor who did the eyes of the guy who did five thousand fixer uppers. I’ll wait until his or her prices come down. 

Second - ain’t no way, no how, anyone is diddling in my eyes unless a moron can do it. I mean I need to walk in and see Forrest Gump handing the appointment book over to Dr. Jethro.

It has to be that simple, like someone pushing the buttons on a carnival ride. When it’s like that, I’ll get it done. When you can get it at Wally World with a coupon for buy one eye, get one free, then I’ll do it.

Until then I’ll keep the contacts that cause the technician at Optical World to say, “Whoa! That’s a strong prescription!”

“W-h-hy?” you ask, slipping on your four knot, eight year old, slick as five-dollar tire, custom fitted tennis shoes.

She sighs and says, “Where do you keep those shoes?”

"In the closet, why?"

"Do you know the pest control guy hasn't had to spray in there for almost two years? Nothing will live around those shoes. I think they are, in fact, Saddam’s WMD."

"Oh, baloney! When it rains, my feet don't get wet. When I put on my faded, custom fitted jeans, I naturally reach for these babies. When I have to haul tail down the street and chase one of the dogs . . . well . . . I call one of the neighborhood kids, but that's not the point. The shoes work. Period." 

And they flat out do. When the sole of the left shoe flops completely off, I'll get some new ones. I'll drive to the first store that sells them, walk in, get a pair in my size, try them on, and buy them. Simple, painless, done. For the next eight years.

But, fellow Pushing 50 Men, because you know how this thing works, we say what?

“But let’s go and look at some new shoes then.” That’s what we say.

You drive over to The Store and while you do, a song comes on the radio that makes no sense.

"What is this trash?" you say and commence to pushing buttons. You stop on the oldie's station, just to check, and this great tune is playing.

"Who made this song, Ben Franklin?" the suddenly young and cheerleader-like wife asks.

"Oh, this song is not that old; ten years - fifteen at best."

". . . And here’s Jimmy Hubba and the Bubbas, from 1978 . . .”

"Seventy-eight, eh?" she says. "Hey, what did you weigh in 1978, anyway?"

"They made a mistake, no way that was from 1978."

". . . Hey, folks, sorry about the date on that last song, big mistake there . . .”

You nod towards her, smugly. "Ha, told you!”

"The Jimster made that tune in 1968, not 78."

She just smiles that smile, the one she tries to hide from you when you bash your foot on the coffee table leg as you dance to your old Bubba albums. And with a twist of her wrist, puts the knife in a little further. Pointing over at your feet, she nods and smugly says:

"Bout the same time those tennis shoes first went on sale, isn't it?"

Touché’.

That’s all just fine, you think. If I gotta come out of this trip with new shoes, so be it. As long as I can stick to the male motto – “I will make no change until long after it’s time to do so” – the details don’t matter.