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December 1993
Volume44Issue8
If make a snow ball you must, then get some snow and pat it into a sphere. Wet snow will cohere and dry snow, not. So find some wet snow. The snow ball should fit into the palm of the hand or you will have no grip for a hurl. If you live where there is no snow, there is nothing to be done. If you would do as does the Esquimault of Prince Albert Land, you would not make a snow ball. Look in the Esquimault’s house. There is to be found not a one orchestrion, or bisque doll, or silver-finished chatelaine purse. That worthy, for his part, will expend of his sinew and brain-power only in return for that which may yield him food, or shelter, or a warm pair of muck lucks for his feet. Even in his idle time he is never idle. He is looking out for polar bears. Alake a snow ball? He would as likely make a hemstitched linen doilie, or an ostrich boa! No, the urge that spawns the snow ball is known only to the great base ball-playing races far to the south. Why does Uncle Sam play base ball, and the Esquimault demur? Throwing and running and swing-a bat are means of expelling the excessive heat that will build up in the male physique in summer, and cause impetigo if not checked. The new science of thermology tells us so. Dr. Kack, the thermohistorologist, has corroborated this with his diggings in Crete, where it is very hot. He has found a base ball pitch there. Base ball was invented in the long ago by King Minos. The painted vases documenting this were all destroyed in a stampede of minotaurs, made mad by impetigo. That is my explanation of how to make a snow ball, it you would make a snow ball.