Trumpets, Please—It’s Spring!

 

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!

My, oh my, what a wonderful day!

Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way,

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!

 

Are we having fun yet?  I think SO!  In Flying Pie land, the azalea bushes have roared to life, closely chased by the riotous dogwoods.  Spring Garden Festivals are popping up everywhere, the mailboxes are full of seed catalogues and frisky college kids are inundating the beaches.  The Grapefruit League baseball teams are wrapping up their business and heading north and temperatures, despite an occasional bobble, are moving in the same direction.  It’s the truth, it’s actual!  Everything is satisfactual!  Mister Bluebird may not be on his shoulder but Mrs. Bluebird has eggs in the nest over at neighbor Greg Poe’s farm.  When people from the colder climes tell you how much they love The Changing of the Seasons, what they’re really talking about is the evolution of Winter into Spring.  The Vernal Equinox, not Christmas is really The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, jingle bells to the contrary.

When we were kids, Spring was greeted with more enthusiasm than was Santa Claus, and with good reason.  Spring was no phantom, Spring was real.  The oppressive New England Winter was on its last legs, still spitting defiance but fully aware its days were numbered.  The lingering snow was a mere annoyance instead of a hindrance and the coal bin in the cellar was diminishing.  Coats and mittens and snowshoes were relegated to their proper place in the deep recesses of the closets and the girls started shopping for bathing suits.  In about ten days, the NBA and NHL playoffs would start and shortly thereafter, the Red Sox were back in town.  Who could ask for anything more?

When we were kids, Spring meant school was entering The End Days, cottage-owners at nearby Salisbury and Hampton beaches were sprucing up their real estate and Misters Glennie and Findeisen were sweeping the cobwebs off their giant drive-in ice cream stands.  It was only a matter of time until the magical ting-a-ling of the popsicle truck was heard in the land, not long before we could rush down to Leo Gervais’ corner store and buy us a Hoodsie, a small ice cream delicacy in a cup, hard as a rock, which we would somehow penetrate with a small woodern spoon the thickness of paper.

Bicycles, the magic carpets which allowed us to travel far and wide, were liberated from basements, baseball mitts were unearthed from storage chests and pounded into shape, the nearby B&M field was closely inspected for snowmelt.  Kids could finally go fishing in the Shawsheen River or even swim in it if they cared to risk freezing or contracting any one of myriad diseases adults promised were rampant there and which nobody ever got.

With the improved weather, we could go to the weekend movies at any one of the five theaters on Broadway for twelve cents and see Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Werewolf, Frankenstein Meets The Mummy, The Mummy Meets The Werewolf, or Abbott And Costello Meet The Whole Meshugenah Outfit.  If you only had six cents, you could trek on over to the lovely Premier Theater, watch a movie and battle husky rodents for your popcorn.  It was Spring.  It was all good.

When we were kids, the Drive-in theaters opened in Spring.  When your parents were in a real good mood, they might take you.  The Drive-ins charged by the carload rather than individually, so they were very big with large families.  Despite obvious drawbacks like mosquitoes, unreliable speakers (which clamped onto the door of your car) and hordes of wild kids running amok and occasionally smacking right into you, these theaters had one big advantage.  Food.  Whereas you might get a bag of popcorn, a coke and some granite-hard Jujubes at a normal cinema, you could get anything at a drive-in.  These places sold ice-cream, pizza, corn-on-the-cob, cheeseburgers, week-old shrink-wrapped submarine sandwiches and even pickles.  There’s nothing like gnawing down on a good pickle while watching the aliens trounce the Earth people.  Of course, when you sent a kid to pick up some sustenance, you often had to dispatch another one to find the first.  The food areas were spectacular gathering places where any kid was bound to meet a friend to discuss the events of the day.  Forty minutes later, they’d remember what they came for.  Missing the movie was no big deal because everybody had probably seen it two years ago at the Downtown. 

In late Spring, the municipal swimming pools opened with a great rush of clientele.  These were never my favorite places.  Since little kids are notorious for relieving themselves in any body of water, however small, pool administrators were forced to nuke the places with powerful chlorine bombs, the odor of which remains on one’s body for millennia.  And, of course, nobody can swim two feet without bumping into someone else.  And then there were the squalling victims of unapproved head-dunking or bathing suit pulldown, a pathetic crowd which would be better off home in their tubs.  On the other hand, you got to ogle Sally Mae in her new bikini, so there’s that.  Okay, so she’s only in elementary school.  When you’re ten years old, you take what you can get.  Oh, and another thing—if you happen to be a ten-year-old boy who doesn’t like girls much, you seem to start liking them a lot better after your visits to the swimming pool.  Funny how that happens.

 

Micki And Ava Galloping At Eisaman Equine

In The Spring, A Young Man’s Fancy Lightly Turns….

To thoughts of horseracing.  The two-year-olds are ready to depart for the racetrack and the unrealistic hopes of breeders and owners go with them.  Bill and Siobhan are winding down their breeding enterprise and Ava (secret identity:Celestial Streak) will be the next to last homebred to sail the colors.  Her running mate, Micki (Irish Runaway) joins her on the long van ride to Gulfstream Park on Monday, there to get the finishing touches from trainer Larry Pilotti and hopefully be ready to start a fruitful career in mid-May, just in time to deliver a hearty wedding present to the betrothed couple.

The final prep races for the fabled Kentucky Derby loom large on the horizon.  The Florida Derby on April 2 matches East Coast champion Mohaymen with California invader Nyquist in a true Battle of the Titans, with rising star Zulu still a possibility.  At Oaklawn Park, Bob Baffert joined the fray with an impressive win in the Rebel Stakes by Cupid, who now becomes the favorite in the Arkansas Derby.  Baffert’s foremost Derby horse until now, Mor Spirit, upset in the San Felipe by Danzing Candy, will look to regain stature in the upcoming Santa Anita Derby.

Tampa Bay Derby winner Destin will go in either the Wood Memorial or the Blue Grass at Keeneland.  Mo Tom, the victim of bad racing luck last out, will try again in the Louisiana Derby.  Unless someone surprises in the big races upcoming—and someone often does—one of the above horses will likely win the Run For The Roses on the First Saturday in May.   The champion filly, Songbird, may be as good as any of them and will put her wares on display in the Kentucky Oaks, one day prior to the Derby.

Spring Cleaning

Shopping carts, as we all know, are the life blood of the homeless, many of them carrying the bulk of their earthlies in the rattling little vehicles as they proceed onward through the fog.  We have often marvelled at the sheer mass and variety contained in these sidewalk liners as their erstwhile captains sail them adeptly between reefs and rocks and misplaced fire hydrants on their risky voyages to the Homeless Marina.  In admiration of the effort, we have occasionally contributed to the helmsman’s fund for gas and oil and other provisions deemed necessary, not wishing to see a valiant sailor stalled on the Highway of Life.  In our travels, we thought we had been privy to virtually all incarnations of sidewalk transportation.  But we hadn’t reckoned with Sonia Gonzalez of New York City.

To say that Sonia has a lot of stuff is like saying Sarah Palin is mildly irritating.  That doesn’t begin to tell the tale.  Sonia has more stuff than Macy’s.  Sonia has more stuff than fifteen Goodwill stores put together.  Sonia has more stuff than Fotchamarra’s Giant Flea Market & Landfill.  Sonia is not fooling around.

Now, all that would be well and good if Sonia had a place of her own, which she does not.  What’s a mobile girl to do?  Well, in Sonia’s case, that would be to round up a bazillion grocery and laundry carts, give or take a cart, fill them up with important items and drag them two or three at a time down the street until you eventually get where you are going.  If you think this might take an awfully long time, consider Sonia’s thoughtful reflection on the subject: “I got all day.” 

According to The New York Post, the Puerto Rican native hangs out along the avenue in Hell’s Kitchen every day and is constantly on the move with her inventory.  One recent afternoon, she was seen hauling 20 grocery carts, 14 laundry carts, eight suitcases, two large crates, one dolly and a partridge in a pear tree.  The freight train contained a motley collection of bottles and cans, but also an air-conditioner, a pink-and-blue Hannah Montana kiddie laundry hamper, a pair of nifty New Balance sneakers, several shower curtain rods, a wire shelving unit, a packaged down comforter, a can of soybean oil and a bound collection of wooden pallets. “You never know when you’ll need a wooden pallet,”  Sonia correctly says.

In midafternoon, a flatbed construction vehicle attempting to turn left onto 41st Street from 10th avenue was unable to make the corner because Gonzalez was blocking its path with her caravan.  Also blocked was an air-conditioning truck with an extremely unhappy driver, but Sonia was calm in the face of the whirling storm.  “It’s my break time,” she said, munching a gyro.  “I’ll get on it when I finish my lunch.”

Gonzalez claims she’s not bothering anybody and doesn’t even ask for money.  “Sometimes, people feel bad for me and give me five or ten dollars.  I only take it to make them feel better.”   Recently, alas, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio decided it was too much.  Spring cleaning was in order.  He sent Paul Vicconti, assistant chief of cleaning operations at the Department of Sanitation to the scene, as well as Police Inspector John B. Hart.  It was up to the latter to pass on the bad news.

“Take what you really need and go,”  Hart instructed, as Sonia busily squirreled away as much stuff as she could.  The cop turned a deaf ear to Gonzalez’ protestations.

“I need all of it,”  she yelled back.  “You’re not listening, you son of a bitch.”

Workers began rounding up the abandoned items around 5:30 and by 7:00 the epic stash was gone, leaving Sonia with a mere three carts and a duffel bag.  “That’s okay,” she said, smiling.  “I’ll start over again tomorrow.”

 

A Final St. Patrick Sighting….

 

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

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