I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I can’t believe that we are still arguing about whether the earth is getting warmer or whether it is getting colder.  I am a firm believer that the earth’s warmer cycle comes around every century because I remember my mother always saying how hot it was back in ought five and how the water from the well had a sort of buttery taste to it. 

Even if it is getting warmer and the future is looking dimmer, we should never let that change our way of life now; that would be very counter productive.  After all, I think that we can all use the advice penned by that lovable Michael Bolton song that states:  “We can build this thing together, standing strong forever, nothing’s gonna stop us now!”

On particularly hot days, my father always used to say, “If the sun gets any closer, we’re going to have to write a letter to the Governor.”  My father was a World War I veteran who had been through a lot and eventually became confused about what was real and what were strange scenarios he had made up in his mind.  Consequently, he began telling all of us kids that a small Japanese man living in the basement of the Governor’s mansion controlled the weather.  He continued to tell us that this man lived off of biscuits and Cheetos and whenever he ran out of sustenance, he would cause lightning and acid rain.  It wasn’t until my oldest brother took a Geology class during his first year of college that we found out about the atmosphere and clouds and such and stopped writing letters to Mr. Sakamoto.

My husband Paul is a lot like my father used to be, except for the fact that Paul has never been in a war and yet still truly believes some of the things that he makes up.  It got so bad one year that Paul actually began telling the kids that Hansel and Gretel lived in the field behind our house and if they didn’t get their homework done before dinner, they would come in during the night, steal their toys and cut off all of their hair while they slept.  Paul told the kids that story every night for over a year and eventually, as ludicrous as it sounds, he started to believe it was true.  What really caused Paul to start believing was when, during a friendly conversation, one of our neighbors told us that he had found bread crumbs while riding his horse Buttercup out in the field.

It got so bad that there were nights Paul slept with a baseball bat under both of our pillows.  Occasionally he would even wake up in the middle of the night claiming that he heard the pitter patter of little feet coming up the stairs.  It was usually our dog Mixie and luckily she only found herself on the receiving end of a few of Paul’s frightened blows.  He, thankfully, never did hurt any of the kids.

After a while, his sleepless nights began catching up with him.  He developed circles under his eyes and even began hallucinating both at work and home.  One night, while our family was watching the Partridge Family, Paul burst out screaming for no apparent reason.  The kids and I were frightened to death and had no idea what was wrong until Paul pointed towards the TV set and said, “That’s him…THAT’S HANSEL!”  When I turned to look at the TV, all I saw was Danny Bonaduce playing the bass and just assumed that he was hallucinating again.  What happened next is something that neither Paul, the kids nor I have ever talked about since.  Paul stood up, grabbed the broom and ran outside the front door.  He then proceeded to destroy ever lawn gnome, pink flamingo and yard decoration throughout the whole block.

After a few hours, one of the neighbors called and told me that they had found Paul asleep in their yard without a shirt on and gripping a stick sharpened at the end.  I was both embarrassed and relieved to find out that he was okay and that he hadn’t hurt himself or any children while he had been gone.

It took almost two whole days for him to be fully conscious again.  The doctor told me that Paul was lucky he didn’t do anymore damage to his body than he already had.  I stayed by his side the whole time he was unconscious and ran my fingers through his hair thinking about all the reasons that I loved him.  While he was asleep, he still seemed angry and restless and began mumbling things about pushing people in ovens; using candy canes to gouge out little eyes; learning to speak German; knitting scarves for John Wayne and other actors; and using chop sticks for crutches.

All in all, I think that our family learned a lot about taking care of ourselves through the Hansel and Gretel trial.  In fact, with all of the horrible and strange things that our family has already experienced, I would say that we should be some of the smartest people on the planet.  Paul never did stop telling “story problems” as he calls them.  In fact, just last week he told me that Liberace came back to life because he wanted to raid my closet.  Where does he come up with this stuff?!?