ANNUAL NOTICE OF ARTHUR'S REASON FOR WRITING

As banks and other institutions must annually publish their assets and liabilities an generally give their reason for being, I, too, sometimes feel compelled to explain my purpose for writing, especially this weekly column.

Long years ago I began putting down daily notations of what I was going to do that day or, at the end of the day, what I had done. There were such things as: I planted 100 strawberry plants today. The first violet of the season bloomed today right in the same southeast corner by the porch where it always does. Two Vs of geese flew over about nine o'clock this morning, honking mightily. Lora, Carrie, Gladys and I met at Sunny Hill for a cup of tea and talk.

Such notations were little things. Occasionally there would be a stark notation such as, Grandpa Bell died today or an extraordinary happy event, Bernice's baby came today, a beautiful little girl.

I could not help but notice that the little daily events that brought pleasure for outnumbered the momentous occasions.

It seemed to me then that we should "seize the day," I hadn't even heard of carp diem. I thought I had discovered something new, that being that we should take full advantage of the little everyday happenings and extract every bit of pleasure from them since the big mountain top experiences happened so far apart just chapter headings instead of the full text. I felt a compulsion to call attention to these little things, to render my account.

On the day of the Big Snow I thought to myself, it has been a long time since I had seen the rare cuff-link snowflake. Surely, with all the snow that was coming down, there must be a few of those.

I put on my dark colored jacket, got my magnifying glass, went out onto the porch and stuck an arm out into the falling snow. When it was sufficiently loaded I pulled it in and put the magnifying glass to it. It is really hard to move the glass away from an isolated, perfectly formed snowflake to go searching for the special one you want to see once more. They are so perfectly formed you have to stop and marvel before moving on.

Each flake is different except for one common thing they are all hexagonal. It seems as if a shower of messages are being sent from the sky in snow shorthand, if you will. Maybe physicists understand this phenomenon; I don't.

You may ask, how do we know there aren't two flakes alike in all the snow that has fallen? Arrangements have been made for snowflakes to fall into a plastic solution which coats the snowflake and hardens quickly. As the flake melts, it leaves a hollow shell which retains the shape of the flake. In all eternity no two have been found alike.

The snowflake I wanted to see one more time is known as the stud snowflake. It is very rare. There are two flakes, one above the other, attached to each other by a six-sided, slender column.

Although it was very cold, the snowflakes melted rather quickly on the sleeve of my jacket. But I persisted, sticking out my arm to catch a new "crop" until I thought a frostbitten nose wouldn't be worth it, but after about the 15th "crop", there it was, near my elbow, sticking up smartly, the space between the flakes about a tenth of an inch, the column between them straight and stiff. I sat in the porch swing and watched until it melted away. It had been like a tiny little gift rewarding me for my patience. And it had come from a great height. Encyclopedias say such flakes come from afar. Perhaps it had started its downward journey before I had even taken a notion to see if I could catch one.

The rest of the day wasn't euphoric, but combined with the later cup of hot chocolate, the re-reading of a favorite story, "The Master of the Inn," by Robert Herrick, the cheerful call of a friend, a cardinal at the window feeder, it all seemed worthwhile to enter into my portfolio of "Little Things That Add Up To Make The One Big Picture Of Life."

REJOICE!