| The following column appeared in The River Reporter in March of 1988 and was republished on March 11, 1999. |
By Bert S. Feldman
The Recusant Reporter
Never mind the woes in all parts of the world, never mind the beginning of the 1988 baseball season -- next week, March 20, is the first day of spring!
This battered old planet has made another loop through time and space, and that time of year when the days and the nights are the same length. In Latin we call it the equinox, which means equal nights. Why they didn’t call it equidies -- equal days -- we don’t know, though probably it is harder to say.
Anyway, the equinox is here, and somewhere out there someplace, the first crocus is poking its nose up through the snow and mud.
We know -- no need to tell us -- that there may be more snow, but we can bear the thought of it. Winter’s days are numbered and then can summer be far behind? Somewhere out there, flapping his wings like crazy, the first robin is bob, bob, bobbin’ along, and will soon make a landing on our lawn.
This is that time of year when everything that you left undone last October is showing up, looking at you reproachfully through a layer of mud. Forget it! There will be plenty of time to fix it in May. Just don’t shed those winter coats and mittens too soon, there will be some more chilly days, but their time is also numbered.
And we have made one vow; somewhere along the end of July, or the beginning of August, someone is going to say to us "Whew! Isn’t it ever going to get cool again?" and we shall grab whatever is nearest and heaviest and heave it at them. No judge would ever convict us, at least not any judge who didn’t spend the winter in Florida.
With winter almost officially over and done with, isn’t it about time that some people should take down their Christmas decorations? In Liberty, the ornaments on the street lights and the festoons of holly still grace that village’s Main Street. Let’s get with it!
As a footnote to last week’s column on nationwide politics and opinion polls, we love the story about one woman’s reply to the poll-taker who asked her about her family’s political preference. "Well," she said, "my family is all mixed up when it comes to politics. I’m a Republican, the old man’s a Democrat, the kid is wet, the cow is dry, and the cat is on the fence."
Mother Goose for Modern Living: Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey; along came a spider who sat down besides her, and said: "Curds are fattening, whey is loaded with cholesterol, and sitting on that tuffet without proper support will give you back problems by the time you reach forty."
