“Oh, why should I have Spring fever when it isn’t even Spring?”---Oscar Hammerstein III
Because that’s when Old Man Winter lays off the accelerator, Oscar, especially here in the South; that’s when the azaleas rush to the fore and tap the redbuds and dogwoods on the shoulder. Spring Fever heralds the anticipation of Spring rather than its actual arrival. ‘Twas ever thus. The Vernal Equinox is fixed in time, but not the anticipatory parade announcing its coming, the outburst of garden festivals and arts fairs, the first trips to the beach to make sure the ocean is still there. It’s a time of hope and high expectations, a celebratory interval where all things are once again possible. That’s why we’re “starry-eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing.” That’s why we’ve got Spring Fever….when it isn’t even Spring.
Oh, To Be In Florida, When The Baseball Is In Bloom
When we were kids, possessed of racing imaginations and bottomless naivete, there were three times each year which popped the mercury right out of our thermometers. These were the approach of Christmas, the end of the school year in June and the onset of Spring Training in Florida. In the case of the latter, it wasn’t just the baseball….it was the magic and the promise. Here we sat in the frozen North, wind-whipped and redfaced, buckling and unbuckling galoshes, camped out in the comfort of hissing radiators listening to the boundlessly optimistic Jim Britt broadcasting from a fairytale place called Sarasota, where it never rained, the grass was velvety green and angels with harps descended from on high in the seventh inning to sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”
We could almost see it, feel it, thanks to Jim, a detail-oriented fellow who realized the importance of describing each team’s uniforms down to the shading of the letters, reporting on the number of clouds in the sky (not many) and giving us a daily injury report on compromised players. How does anybody ever get hurt in a perfect place like Florida, we wondered? If we were lucky, Jim would toss in an interview he recently had with people like us, Ed and Judy from Medford or Sam the Milkman from Attleboro, visiting Red Sox fans who would reassure the folks back home that the team was looking incredible and this would finally be the year we caught the Yankees.
The Spring Training reports made the frosty temperatures in Massachusetts seem a little warmer, warm enough perhaps to knock the old horsehide around a bit, snow be damned. We shoveled off the basepaths, measured out a mound and cleared home plate. In lieu of the old horsehide, we utilized the old electrical-tape-covered ball, less zippy but much longer-lasting. We played until the spheroid was hopelessly lost somewhere in the outfield and went home satisfied with our efforts. It wasn’t the quality of the game, of course, in the waning days of Winter….it was the promise of things to come, as if we could push opening day closer by force of will and the penance of frozen fingers. It wasn’t Spring yet but how could Spring resist much longer the demands of youth, the shouts of fiery young boys racing around the bases oblivious to foolishness like twentyish temperatures and rank precipitation? We reach back for those memories and the memories are still there, but their colors are fading now and a few of the particulars lost in time. We can no longer see with the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, no longer grasp that level of excitement available only to children enjoying the experience for the first times. The closest we can come is during this clever time of year, when the cold relents, when floral beauty tickles our senses, when Spring is warming up its pitching arm out in the bullpen. It isn’t exactly childhood, but it will do for now.
The Obligations Of Spring
If you were ever disposed of the notion you’d like to know how many seed companies there are in the United States, you might want to ask Siobhan, who has a catalogue from every one of them. There is a little known rule among these businesses that all seed catalogues must be mailed out the same day of the year to as many customers as possible, so the Post Office is an interesting place to be when they arrive. The P.O. in Fairfield, Florida is about half the size of your average 7-11 store, and so on catalogue day resembles nothing so much as a hoarder’s den devoid of walking aisles. The nefarious publications block the entrances, annoy the postal staff and blot out the sun. They will not be transportable in Aunt Bessie’s delivery Opel or anything short of a Ford 150 with good tires. Somehow, though, all the catalogues are delivered by next day, a miracle on the order of the construction of the pyramids or the parting of the Red Sea. At least, we think they are delivered. Everybody’s heard those awful tales of errant postmen who snap, spend the balance of their days at the tanning salon and bring all the mail home for safekeeping. The Postal Oath refers to rain, snow and gloom of night, but never to nervous breakdowns.
When your seed catalogues finally arrive, you must decide what you are capable of growing. Aside from zucchini and squash, of course, which can be grown by mindless robots just in from Mars. You can plant zucchini seeds in the middle of the interstate in the desert and the crop will arrive in abundance. Squash farmers, unable to give the stuff away, must resort to rushing up in dead of night to leave baskets on their neighbor’s porches. If you hear gunfire in the distance, it is probably some homeowner defending his residence from invaders bearing squash.
Siobhan, ever the optimist, is planting tomatoes this year, hopeful that some of them will actually arrive with a bit of a taste. It is no longer possible to buy tomatoes in any sort of market which could be fed to a blindfolded person and readily identified. When we were kids, tomatoes were delicious. Now it is only required they be pretty. I’m sure we’ll also have cucumbers, Siobhan being a master of cuke development. Last year, we had so many we built an extra room on the house with them. Siobhan became very aggressive in offering cucumber sandwiches to employees, guests, the Fedex man and people who came down the wrong driveway. None of our friends came by to visit anymore and the Fedex man began leaving packages by the front gate. Business picked up when we began offering Snickers bars with each cucumber. Necessity is the mother of invention.
March Madness
Only the worst grump could be cheerless in the merry month of March. Stuff is busting out all over. We start off on the 1st of the month with Peanut Butter Lover’s Day. If you didn’t get your memo in time, you’re allowed a mulligan. Celebrations are also allowed on the 31st, but late revelers are restricted to smooth, not crunchy. March 2, as everybody knows, is Dr. Seuss’ Birthday. Okay readers, all together: “I would not eat them here or there. I would not eat them anywhere. I would not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”
On March 5th, the parachute was invented. This teriffic technological advance made it much easier to drop living soldiers behind enemy lines. Even more important, Oreo cookies were first created on March 6th. March 8---that’s TODAY, folks---is Be Nasty Day, so if you were planning on visiting grandma at the nursing home or helping out at the soup kitchen, leave it for another day. If we can get everybody to cram all their nastiness into these 24 hours we should be okay for the rest of the month. March 9th is Panic Day. You know what to do, right?
March 11th is a big one for gardeners---Johnny Appleseed Day---in order of the crazed sower of seeds who roamed the eastern half of the United States shoeless, wearing a tin pot hat and carrying a sack of apples. He planted apple trees everywhere he went, whether you liked it or not. A man had to work for his fame in those days. You couldn’t just be a lummox like Dr. Phil and go on Oprah.
March 11th is Worship of Tools Day. There’s a lot of that going on. March 13th, celebrated primarily in the North, is Ear Muff Day. You never outgrow your need for ear muffs. The scary Ides of March arrives on the 15th. Keep an eye on your rear-view mirror. And then, the highlight of the month, St. Patrick’s Day, on the 17th for all you Harps and would-be Irishmen out there. Anything can happen on St. Patrick’s Day and often does. We used to drink Jameson Whiskey at the Subterranean Circus on SPD and often wound up going home with people we didn’t know---just like at your favorite bar, but with blacklights.
March 19th is Poultry Day, so set your chickens free. March 20th is a double-header: International Earth Day, but also Extraterrestial Abductions Day. Be extra aware of unidentified flying objects while cleaning up the waterways. We lose more people that way. March 21 is Fragrance Day, celebrated in beauty salons and under interstate ramps alike. March 22 is the very popular National Goof Off Day. If you have been goofing off all year, you’re required to actually do something for a change or be subjected to the likelihood of National Tar & Feathers Day on the 26th (see below).
Now we get to the good stuff. March 24 is National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day and March 25 is both Pecan Day and Waffle Day. March 26 is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. I’m thinking of something along the lines of Mail Bill A Pie Day or Kick A Trumper For Jesus Day. March 27 is National “Joe” Day, recognition which is certainly required to help stem the tide of diminishing Joes out there. March 28 is Something On A Stick Day, which always reminds me of chipped beef. March 31 is Bunsen Burner Day, the better to burn down your high-school lab. March, in its entirety, is Optimism Month, and why shouldn’t it be with all this hullaballoo? March is also, as everybody knows, our beloved Poetry Month. Matter of fact, I think I feel a poem coming on.
“Spring is icumen in---Lhude sing doo-wah.” Charlotte Dos Santos said that. Or maybe it was Lieuen Adkins.
The Other March Madness
Warren Buffet, the world’s third-richest man and a serious basketball fan, is back and has he got a deal for you. First, though, you have to get a job working for Warren. It shouldn’t be hard. Buffet’s outfit, Berkshire Hathaway, is a massive conglomerate with 377,291 employees at 63 operating companies ranging from Geico to Duracell to Dairy Queen. You may not be able to sell insurance or whip up a battery, but anybody can assemble a banana split. One of Buffet’s workers will win $100,000 even if no one picks a bracket with a perfect Sweet 16 in this year’s NCAA College Basketball Tournament. Closest employee gets the prize. About 100,000 tried it last year.
Warren has another contest for the rest of us non-employees, but nobody is going to win it. He’s offering a million dollars a year for life to anyone submitting a perfect bracket for the entire tournament. He started this business along with Quicken Loans in 2014 when he offered anyone who completed a perfect bracket $1 billion. The chances of a winner in that one were 1 in 9.2 quintillion, the latter of which has 18 zeroes if you’re counting. The employee-only Sweet 16 contest is a relative breeze compared to that. When ESPN offered a similar contest last year, a whopping 18 brackets were correct out of 18.8 million submitted.
Warren Buffet is presently worth in the neighborhood of $84 billion. He’ll pay up with a smile if you win. You can ask for it in ones if you want to be a showoff.
That’s all, folks….
2921 viewers in the last month
