I stood at the kitchen window watching the snow falling first in big, lacy flakes than in a haze of stormy dots. The snow lay across the field that lay between our house and the next in a pristine white blanket separated by a white fence that marched across the land. At the back of the house, the snow crept through the woods like a hastily thrown carpet, snuggling around tree trunks and resting on leafless tree branches in picturesque frosty mode. I thought it was all quite beautiful even as I hoped it was the last snowfall of the season.
And then a wave of nostalgia flowed over me. I wanted to build a snowman! I hadn't built a snowman since my first granddaughter was a little girl. I grinned as I donned boots, coat, scarf and gloves. I may be a member of the Over The Hill Gang, but it wasn't like I was endeavoring to build a massive snow fort or something of that magnitude. I was still quite capable of making a snowman. With an air of determination I marched out to the back of the house. Didn't really want any cars passing by to see me "playing in the snow." After all, even at this age, we do have a modicum of reputation to uphold.
I set to work and before long I had my snowman. I grinned as I looked at him. Okay, so he wasn't the rotund little Frosty of popular song that we're all familiar with. No. My ill-shapen, stout little snowman kind of looked like a pugilist who'd participated in too many boxing matches. At that moment, I named him Mugsy. Left over from a theatrical production, I perched a jaunty black vintage bowler hat on his snowy head and flung a colorful scarf around his neck that I fashioned into a necktie. As I rolled his body parts, I discovered some walnuts hidden beneath the snow lying on the brown earth beneath the dormant walnut tree. A whole one made a perfect eye and half of one turned sideways made Mugsy look as though he was winking. Okay... maybe you had to use your imagination to catch that look, but I chuckled for I could see it plainly.
I couldn't find anything for a mouth or nose so as inspiration struck, I went into the house to get a tube of lipstick. On my way back through the kitchen, I spied the fruit bowl on the island and snagged a grape thinking it would make a perfect nose. Standing in front of Mugsy, I pressed the grape into his face. Viola! A perfect nose! Then I set to drawing a bright red snowman mouth on him. It looked pretty good, but didn't work out so well, as it quickly began to flake off, leaving him with a crooked, lopsided smirk. I stood back, surveying him. Yeah, he was a dumpy little figure, but he was mine and I liked him! And I was glad I took the chance to build a snowman one last time and that I was still capable of doing just that!
I enjoyed Mugsy standing stalwartly in my back yard for a couple of days, but then the weather took a rise in temperatures and the sun played hide 'n seek with the clouds and Mugsy was beginning to sink into oblivion. His head was drifting into his middle and his red lipstick-smile had become even more lopsided and his nose was gone. I suspect a bird, hovering over my universe, plucked it out and had it for dinner. Through the kitchen window I watched him and as a sunbeam passed across his snowy features, I sensed he winked at me and I smiled. Mugsy would soon slip away into yesterday's winter land where all snowmen go to rest until the next season of snowflakes fall. And with childlike faith-for a moment I believed – as the song promised – he'd "be back again someday!"