January 14, 2004
January

January.  Talk about a month with an image problem.  It’s easier to find folks heaping praise on Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton than to find a fan of January.  Were the months of the year put to a vote January would finish sixteenth or worse in a twelve-month race.  January’s popularity is so low it would run a distant second to Hillary at a “non-country club” Republican caucus.

     Poor January, a month best known for minimal daylight where even the hours supposedly featuring sunshine consistently deliver stone gray skies, icy streets and a raw north wind.  While April showers bring May flowers, June and July remain synonymous with baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, September and October feature the vibrant colors of fall, January is best known for flu, chain laws and wind chill reports.  

    Retailers find January to be a black hole devoid of shoppers who are still hung over from the massive debt that  follows getting into the Christmas spirit.  While February through December finds the advertising community encouraging us to spend, spend, spend,  in January we’re barraged with a cacophony of messages urging denial.  January, it’s reasoned, is a miserable time of the year anyway so why not make life even more wretched by   ending the inherent evil habits provided by tobacco, alcohol and food.   Unfortunately by the middle of the month self-improvement becomes secondary to the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen by not quitting?”  Death is the obvious response to that question and in January leaving this vale of tears becomes a highly viable alternative  compared to the effort necessary to hold on until February arrives.   All good intentions to quit anything in January usually come to a screeching halt by 1/21.  

     History tells us little about January.  The best guess seems to be the month gets its name from Janus, the Greek God of market timing and insider trading.  Non-January months are remembered in song.  For years we have been warbling how April showers bring May blooms and the Whiffenpoofs melodically remind one and all the days of September through December dwindle down to a precious few, but try and warble a memorable January lyric.

     January might be the toughest on physical fitness fans. Runners and bicyclists spend the entire month either staring out the window at forbidding elements or enduring the mind numbing sameness unique to the running or sitting but go absolutely no-where treadmill or stationary bike. 

     Even snow lovers find their enthusiasm curbed by January’s environment.  Downhill skiers equate the first of the year with huddling on a lift against the bone chilling wind of early winter.  For skinny skiers a January afternoon on the Mesa may offer an inversion diversion but still promises high winds and gray skies.  Snowmobilers find January the month offering optimum conditions for engine failure and getting lost.   And if you think those folks find January a downer, what about the poor golfers who are left with nothing to do for an entire month but stare at the pretty pictures in Golf Digest, spend eight hours a day watching golf tournament re-runs on the Golf Channel and vowing to never again complain about July heat.

     Not that January is a total waste.  In our circle of family and friends, the month hosts almost two dozen birthdays.  Oh wait, that means May was a great month, not January.

     January is so mundane it’s not only National Soup Month but also National Oatmeal and National Hot Tea month.  As the old saw goes, “Thirty days have September, April, June and November except for January which has one hundred and twenty eight.”

    So who will speak up for January? Look no further than moi.  January, I’ve decided, offers the perfect time to quit kvetching and take control of one’s emotions.  Forget the weather.  It is what it is.  Get off your kiester, go outside and enjoy whatever environmental hand has been dealt.  Nobody likes a whiner.  See January not as the height of dismal but as a time one amps up their attitude toward the positive.   It’s the perfect season to travel, be outside and inter act with your fellow man. That’s the official Maynard mantra for January.  In fact we’re so full of January at our house, we’re off to Hawaii.  Be back some time around, oh say, February 1^st.