For as long as I’ve known him (more years than we both ever thought we’d last in this business), my fellow editor, Ron Smith, has groused and moaned about February. He makes much ado about his disdain for our second month, and usually each year trots out his litany of dislikes in a column. This year was no exception (http://bit.ly/2o84hUc).

If he were not so entertaining with his anti-February diatribes, I would think him a curmudgeon. But unlike many in our line of work, he is one of those people who seem in perpetual good humor (making me somewhat suspicious of him and whether he should instead have pursued the baseball career he fancied in his youth). All things considered, I take his February caviling with a grain of salt. We writers are sometimes desperate for words to fill space.

That said, I can relate. In the Mid-South, February is such a capricious month. I don’t like cold. February is often cold. Or cold and gray and gloomy. Or cold and gloomy and gray and rainy. Sometimes there’s snow and/or ice (e.g., the monster ice storm of ’94 that wiped out the entire electrical grid in our town and left us without power for 30 days). Or torrential rains, as have occurred over much of the Mid-South this February — some areas of north Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee experienced  record rainfall, and on the last day of the month some areas were forecast to get another 5 inches to 6 inches. And like as not, even the worst February will have a couple or three 75-80 degree days thrown in just to keep the pot stirred.

Some areas of north Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee experienced record rainfall in February, and on the last day of the month some areas were forecast to get another 5 inches to 6 inches.

Some years, February can be downright summery, as in 2017, when I was putting out tomato plants late in the month, banana plants and fig trees were leafing out weeks early, and roses were blooming end of the month. Global warming, y’know.

Weather extremes aside, I have some less-than-glowing memories of Februaries past. There was the time a 10-inch snow stranded me in a Missouri Bootheel motel for two days and nights, and no eating places anywhere within walking distance. Two days and nights of vending machine chips, cookies, and Cokes got old quickly.

Twelve years ago President’s Day, I slipped on what I thought was a wet sidewalk at my front door, but was really clear ice, and broke my right wrist, leaving me in a fingertips-to-above-the-elbow plaster cast for six weeks.

February 2018, a freak fall, and I ended up with the fourth finger of my left hand jutting out at a 30-degree angle. I just knew it was broken. But the ER doc looked at it and jovially opined “it’s probably just dislocated,” which X-rays confirmed. After a numbing injection with what looked like a veterinary syringe, he popped it back into place, and now I’m four weeks down, two weeks to go, with two fingers taped together so the ligament can heal. Thankfully, I can type reasonably well, unlike with the long-ago broken wrist.

Now that (mostly) cold, gloomy February is in the rear view mirror, daffodils/Japanese magnolias/Bradford pears are blooming everywhere, and the start of daylight saving time is little more than a week away, things are looking better already.

Bring on spring!