February 5, 1981

Like everyone else, on Sunday we pulled the month of January from the calendar and there, like four weeks of bad road, was February. Of all the months of the year February is the most maligned, the most despised, the most dreaded. Only August comes close to matching February's disfavor.
It's not that February by itself is so bad -- January and March are not really much different. It has just been the victim of poor timing. February comes during the depths of winter. It is the veritable pit of the season. It is north winds and sub-zero chill factors. It is snow flurries which are no longer charming and snow drifts which are not longer white.
February is a time when your nose runs, your toes ache, and your eyes tear. It is a month of scraping ice from your windshield. February is to the year what migraines are to the forehead.
January has its New Year, its resolutions, its optimism. March has its inkling of spring, milder temperatures, and sometimes Easter. February has Groundhog Day -- not much to celebrate really. The groundhog sticks his head from the burrow, sees its shadow, and we all get rewarded with February.
Two of our most famous Presidents had the misfortune to be born in February. If ever there was proof that people born under the meanest of circumstance could grow up to be somebody, this is it.
We respond to the month's harsh bitterness by handing it the ultimate insult -- we mispronounce its name. Instead of Feb-ru-ary, we call it Feb-uary. It's not that we don't know any better. It's just our way of getting back at it for what it does to us.
In spite of our animosity and our name calling, it remains the second month of the year. Twenty-eight days waiting to be plodded through.
At least the calendar makers had the good sense to make it the shortest month of the year. Can you imagine thirty-one days of February.... ~T. Stucky