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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

January is the month of Mondays when puffer jackets proliferate.

This is the year I’m going to change. I change every year, but this time, it’ll be for the better.

That’s why I was in the binder organization aisle of an office supply store. I’d planned on picking up a few binders and becoming more organized than Marie Kondo was in her prime. Kondo was an expert in the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing. Her philosophy was to “keep only what sparks joy.” She’s since given up on tidying her home. Maybe she made enough money by selling books on how to declutter that she could buy a home big enough that it’s impossible to clutter. I looked at a purple and an orange binder. Neither sparked joy. Why buy a binder when I could use the money to get a deal on a Christmas tree in January?

The orange binders reminded me of what I’d learned in school. January was named after Jan Yew Wary, who discovered the Florida yew and remained vigilant about any cold weather that threatened her orange crop and required her to break out the smudge pots. That’s what I learned. Wait, that wasn’t me. What I learned in school or from reading comic books, was that January was named for the god Janus, the god of beginnings, transitions, doors, gateways and ice cream headaches. Janus is frequently depicted walking to the chiropractor’s office with his two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. January was the last month added to the Roman calendar, which initially had 10 months beginning in March and ending at halftime of the Super Bowl.

The days are getting longer, or maybe they just seem longer. We become hopeful when we hear someone say inspirational things like, “It’s up to six below zero.” I occasionally see blue snow that makes me want to call the sheriff and report that someone is stepping on Smurfs. It’s caused by the urine of rabbits or deer that have eaten buckthorn. The buckthorn contains a chemical that passes out with the urine. It comes out yellowish to brownish, but after exposure to sunlight, it turns a lovely blue color, the color of windshield washer fluid. This effect is visible because the urine is suspended in snow. You’d think the eastern cottontails are eating the berries of the buckthorn because they’re purplish, but the effect occurs after the animals have eaten other parts of the plant. Buckthorn holds its leaves longer than most native deciduous plants, and I’ve watched rabbits feed on the bark and twigs in winter. No matter what, don’t eat the blue snow.

I used to fall through the ice of the Le Sueur River each year in January. The name Le Sueur comes from the Old French word sueur, which means “one who sews” or “one who jumps on thin ice.” I never made a reservation to plunge into the river. I didn’t intend on becoming an iceberg bobbing in a gelid river; it just happened. I trudged home while wearing icy socks. My mother had me get out of those wet clothes and plop down in front of the overzealous wood stove until I felt like a skeeter in a skillet.

When I was a boy reading Batman comic books in the barbershop, one loafer who idled there declared the high-temperature record for January was set outside that tonsorial parlor on Jan. 2, 1944, when the mercury hit 64 degrees. That was above zero.

I experienced Jan. 5, 2012, when the temperature hit 54 degrees above zero here in Lower Slobbovia. Al Capp coined Lower Slobbovia in his comic strip “Li’l Abner” as the name of a fictional, perpetually snowbound and comically backward country. That was the day an 88-year-old neighbor donned a Speedo for his morning stroll to the mailbox. Seeing that, the rural mail carrier was temporarily blinded and drove deep into the ditch, where his car stayed until the June thaw.

The resident grouch of Whoville and a member of a species known as What was fortunate enough not to glimpse the Speedo incident.

That was the day the Grinch’s small heart grew three and one-half times in appreciation.

Al Batt’s column appears in the Tribune every Wednesday.