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   I'd been reading about the male mid-life crisis for years. Waiting. When? Regular self-examination as prescribed by the Reader's Digest failed to detect any of the predicted symptoms... until one day I found it... at the dump. All those "unmistakable signs" and first-hand accounts about the onset of male menopause are beside the point. The experts had overlooked the single most important symptom. I probably never would have discovered it myself if it hadn't been for a fortuitous coming together of experience and cogitation smack dab in the middle of the accumulating debris of luxurious feasts, extravagant packaging and the ghosts of housing past and housing yet to be. After sweeping the obligatory offering onto the summit of Mount Landfill, I jounced around the usual tourist route, sightseeing at all the major attractions when what should I behold:

But a block of cut brownstone, as precious as gold;
And when I came close to this stone-mason's prize;
I discovered four more, and a fifth one besides.
But oh, 't'was that last one, a bushel-sized rock.
That would take some real straining to budge from its dock.
Well, up went the first, with nary a groan,
The second, the third, I'd soon have them home.
The fourth I rolled up through the mire and muck,
And grunted it into the back of my truck.
For three months I'd lifted no heavier weight
Than what was dished up on my own dinner plate.
But the next proved a cinch, a feather to lift.
I patted my back, that took care of the fifth.
The sixth had me worried. I tried not to think.
There it sat. There I stood. While across in the stink
I noticed two guys prospecting the ooze
Now rose to their feet to see if I'd lose.

"That gray-beard's too old," they both-seemed to say,
Too much for his back! How much does it weigh?"
Well I'd soon show them; nothing more simple.
Would I ask for help? Would Macy ask Gimble?
I gave it a heave, but that rock didn't budge,
It just hunkered stubbornly into its sludge.
I put my strength to it, such as it was then,
And such as it probably won't be again.
Over it rolled. There! How'd you like that?
I showed them there's still muscle under this fat.
Over again! If it didn't get stuck,
One tumble more we'd be back at the truck.

Then what?
I bent. I strained.
They watched. I pained.
Half way up I got stuck with no place to hide.
There Sisyphus stood with a cramp in his side.
(Be it ever so painful, there's no pain like pride.)
My vertebrae snapping, I called on the Lord,
And inched that stone into the back of the Ford.
I gingerly straightened, my anguish disguised,
And stepped 'round the cab to wave to the guys.

"Nothing to it," I hoped my demeanor would say,
"I lift rocks this size at least twice a day."
'T'was as I bumped off on a crushed lower spine
I was given this great revelation of mine.
Change of life for the male doesn't sta1t with a rash.
Mid-life crisis begins with a hot Macho Flash.

   The macho flash. I'd been having them all my life. Bite your lip. Swallow your fear. Climb to the top of the apple tree because someone is watching. Sensible hesitation overwhelmed by the presence of spectators. Female spectators. Watching! Up you go in a macho flash, to sway among the twigs wondering why. Alone. Clutching. The curse males of the species contend with throughout life.

   You'd think we'd learn, especially after having been granted the grace to see what a macho flash can do to a guy. But no! It took three weeks for my back to recover; three weeks of cautiously twisting out of chairs; then three days of standing up straight to forget all about it. Body healed. Brain washed.

   For three weeks I drove around town with six brownstone boulders rumbling around in the back of the truck. Should anyone one have asked, I would have said they were for extra traction. In case of snow! Meanwhile they dug potholes into the bed of the pick-up. The day I finally tested my back by shoving them out I also tested my resolve to avoid irresistible temptations and invaluable objects by succumbing once again to the lure of the dump, innocently whistling all the way to the spot where the existence of macho flash had been revealed to humankind three and a half weeks earlier. There, on that very spot, what should I behold:

But a cast-iron wood stove, lonely and cold.
Resolute, Intrepid, Defiantly brave,
It awaited its fate with four feet in the grave.
I yelled from my truck the encouraging cry,
"Don't move a rivet. Rescue is nigh!"

   Why carry it further than absolutely necessary? I backed around a shopping cart full of old clothes and put the tailgate as close as possible to the stove. Got out. Spit in the general direction of each of my palms to insure a good grip, and assumed a Bulgarian squat, just the way the weight lifters do who win all the gold medals. "Use the legs, not the back," that is what all the Commentators who know about such things advise. Hugging the stove to my chest, I used the legs, Oooooo! I was painfully reminded that the design of our human anatomy requires a skeletal connection between legs and arms. But I was up. Standing with that delicate cast-iron objet d'art cradled in my embrace. I took two stiff-legged steps, eased it tenderly into the back of the truck, and with one last effort, slammed the tailgate shut.

   Success! But could I bend enough to sit down and drive?

   A shout. "Hey, Ted, did you lift that stove by yourself? Why didn't you yell for help'?" He drives the bulldozer for the D.P.W. and is almost big enough to be painted yellow himself.

   "Didn't see ya, Gibby. Thanks anyway."

   Then I made the mistake of lifting an arm to wave, my breathing altered considerably. I writhed through the torture of folding myself behind the wheel, silently cursing the sex of my birth. Now it all came back. Re-revelation.

   Gretchen must have seen me pull in. As soon as I lurched through the kitchen door she asked, "What are you going to do with it? You already have two wood stoves turning to rust out behind the barn."

   "Well, if I didn't have it I couldn't do anything with it, could I?" I snapped back, and was instantly chastised by a muscle spasm.

   "Your back?" she nodded.

   I nodded.

   "Won't you ever learn?" she shook her head in the other direction.

   I shook my head in the other direction, and began to mumble an explanation about an irresistible macho flash.

   We were communicating.

© 2004-2007. Nancy Thayer.
All text by Nancy Thayer.
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