Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1919 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

I wonder why, when spring is here, the picnic germ takes hold, and we streak off to woodlands drear, to eat our victuals cold. We know that picnics are a frost, a burden and a blight; they merely anger and exhaust, and put us in a plight. It always rains on picnic day, and soaks us to the skin; if there are rivers on our way, we’re sure to tumble in. We eat stale bread and sodden eggs, and many a clammy thing, and crawling bugs swarm up our legs, and bees and hornets sting. A weeping sky above us bends and sheds its drizzling goods, and. we swear vengeance on the friends who took us to the woods. “We’re done with picnics!” we exclaim, when homeward we repair; “the picnic is a ghastly game that fills man with despair. And though we live a thousand years, we ne’er again shall go, to drink sour milk and ginger beers, where elms and willows grow.” W>e are in earnest in our vow, our words are stern and blunt; you couldn’t /drag us with a cow to any woodland stunt. Bdt when the spring in gay attire has decked all we feel again the fool desire" to picnic in the woods. We sternly try to crush it down, and from temptation flee; we won’t be dragged away from town, where all our comforts be. At last we hesitate and yield, and think it no disgrace, and walk through swamp and fen and field, to reach the picnic place. And then we have no fun at all; it’s wearisome and flat; I wonder why wc always fall for such a game as that. 1 wonder why we always start a garden with such vim, and labor till we break a heart and dislocate a limh. We know that in a week or three we'll sicken of the task, and then we’ll loaf beneath a tree and 101 l around and bask. I wonder why a hen has wings, since it can’t wish to soar; 1 wonder, oh, so many things! The list would be a bore.