Muuuuuud, winter and Mr. Partridge

Funny how ideas unfold, especially in my quirky mind each morning. I was thinking about mud.

I was thinking about it cuz the stuff is dominating our every move outside these days and especially when we country folk get into our cars after driving them down our beloved dirt-turned-mud roads.

For my country friends, don'tcha just love it when you go to town, maybe to lunch at one of our fancy restaurants, do a little shopping, stop by the post office or the bank---all of which involve getting in and out of the car several times and walking places with people behind you.

Then, you get home, change those going-to-town clothes and discover half-inch deep ridges of dried mud caked to backs of both your pant legs.

And then you groan in disgust, knowing that everybody got to see those ugly streaks everywhere you went cuz every time you stepped in and out of the car, that running board got covered with a fresh, soupy supply of the stuff as you cruised all of ten mph down that dirt-turned-mud road that you love so much.

And, you forgot the added deposits were there with each ingress and egress, adding more to your pant leg each time.

Well, I've lived that scenario several times in the last few days during this unseasonally mild winter. I finally caught on before driving to Coeur d'Alene yesterday and took along a towel, so I could wipe off the running board and so that my mother and I could walk around the big town not looking quite so much like a couple of country bumpkins rolling in from the back hills.

While considering the dirty pant-leg frustrations as a blog topic, I thought about a song I like by Johnny Cash with the line "The mud, the blood and the beer."

I've always liked to say that phrase, just like Johnny did so eloquently in his song about the poor boy named Sue.

"The MUUUUUUUUd, the BLUUUUUUUUUd and the Beer."

It rolls off the lips much like the muuuuuuuuuuud is rolling off seemingly everything around here right now, especially my horse Lefty's blanket. Can't hardly tell it's blue anymore cuz it's so smeared with barnyard Picasso-like MUUUUUUUUUUd images.

And, it's been hard to pick a path to the mailbox the past few days without having to step in the squishy stuff as it melts into a pudding consistency from its morning hard pack on South Center Valley Road. Invariably, I have to find some good wipe places before re-entering the house.

So, muuuuuuuuuud is on the mind these days, much more than I've experienced in the past few years. And, so while my blogging thoughts have been turning to muuuuuuuuud this morning, I also resurrected another phrase, heard long ago in my world history class with Mr. Jerry Partridge at Sandpoint High School.

An aside: Of course, while thinking about Mr. Partridge, I got to wondering whatever happened to him, so I did some googling. Turns out he lives in Miles City, Montana, where he finished his teaching career and now serves on the City Council. I knew that from googling, and I also found his phone number.

So, I called Mr. Jerry Partridge of Miles City this morning and asked if he was the same one who taught us history. Sure enough, he said to me.

I know Mr. Partridge did not remember me, but he sure remembered Sandpoint and pointed out that he had a son born in Sandpoint during the same era as Sarah Palin, Tom Albertson and Joe Parenteau---also teachers' kids.

But his son Mark was a tad bit older, and that son now serves as a chair in the economics department at Ohio State University. His other son teaches in Helena, and Mr. Partridge is very proud of both of them.

Mr. Partridge taught us about the two nemeses that got in the way of Napoleon when he was trying to conquer the world and headed off to Russia. Those two adversaries, according to Mr. Partridge, were "General Winter" and "General Mud." I never forgot that and have thought of it a time or two as we trudge forward here during mud season in North Idaho.

Napoleon was not alone in facing tough foes. We faced General Winter the past two years. I don't know that it drove us away like the Russian winter did to Napoleon's forces, but it held a mighty grasp on our efforts to do anything besides shovel, plow and rest up for the next shovel, plow and rest cycle.

And, this year we do have the mud, which has been known, in past years, to disrupt a few things around here. So far, it's not much of a problem except to vex us with those dirty pant legs and to paint streaks of ugly gray on an otherwise pretty landscape.

But this is early February, and generally Mud is not an issue around here until March. So, there's plenty of time ahead for it to build up its stamina and to dig deep within the earth's surface so that all things trying to pass over it get sucked in to its filthy grasp.

So, that's the dirt on mud this morning from this crazy mind. And, it turned out to be fun thinking about it because once more I know what happened to a teacher who stood out among my many wonderful teachers. Good talking to you, Mr. Partridge.

We're hoping we'll do better than Napoleon at conquering General Mud this winter.

Special Note: Many thanks to Shawn at Jimmy C's on HWY 95 at the Athol stoplight. Our late afternoon lunch was delicious and your service was delightful.

As I told Shawn yesterday, I've driven past that restaurant on the northwest side of the stoplight intersection all my life and have never stopped until yesterday. It's very nice inside and the food is ample and very tasty. Thanks again.