Spring Has Sprung (Maybe?)

Spring is here, spring is here
Life is skittles and life is beer
I think the loveliest time of the year
Is the spring, I do, don’t you? Course you do…

                                                            –Tom Lehrer, in Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

River Falls experienced a small dose of spring fever last weekend. When we woke up on Thursday morning, the local temperature was 15 below zero; on Saturday, it rose to nearly 40 degrees; by Sunday afternoon, it topped out at 46—that’s a change of over sixty degrees in a couple of days. Pretty cool.

The warm weather and sunshine melted snow that had fallen since November. More than that, the sunny warmth seemed to affect the attitudes of everyone in town. I went for a run that took me downtown, but it was so nice, I extended it and walked all through the UWRF campus before returning home. Everywhere I went, I saw people walking, jogging, riding bicycles, hauling out their barbeques, and otherwise enjoying the fresh air. On my long street (Golf View Drive, 1.3 miles long), I saw two young parents on lawn chairs on their driveway, watching their kids play. A few doors down, I saw a little girl, about 5, splashing through the melting snow in a Minnie Mouse outfit that included patent leather shoes, a red and white, polka-dot skirt, and a black, sleeveless shirt. At the time, mind you, it wasn’t as if we were on a beach in Florida—the temperatures were still in the thirties. Compared to the weather we had been having all winter, though, it was positively balmy. Everywhere I looked, I saw faces that reminded me of those people just released from the quarantined cruise ship in Japan: they were relieved to be freed from a lengthy captivity.

To hell with the groundhog, for me the first harbinger of spring has always been hearing the words, “pitchers and catchers report” to spring training. This year was no exception, and spring training is underway in Arizona and Florida. Living in Chicago for many years, there might have been snow on the ground and sub-zero temperatures, but as long as baseball was being played somewhere, I knew that spring could not be too far away. I remember being a little kid and throwing a rubber ball against my front porch as soon as the snow started melting. I still smile when I think of my dad inside, swearing every time the ball took an errant bounce and clanged harshly against our aluminum front door.

In more recent years, the unofficial start of spring for me came on the Thursday in March when the NCAA basketball tournament began. March Madness has always been special for us. When Ben was still a little kid, we told him he had his choice of which day he wanted to take off from school: opening day of baseball season or the start of the NCAA Tourney. He invariably chose basketball because, that way, he had sports on TV from morning until midnight.

In Nashville, our NCAA-basketball watching broadened to include friends and family in a local bar. In the days when only one game at a time was broadcast on TV, we could see all four games at the Cross Corner Pub. Kathleen ran a pool at her place of employment, and her friend, Joy, recruited people to enter the pool and join us on Friday afternoon for food, beer, and basketball at the pub. It usually fell during my spring break from school, so I could attend without guilt. Daughter Kristin and her husband Kevin drove up from Huntsville to join us (although they were usually late), and many people from Kathleen’s workplace or mine joined us for lunch or dinner in the course of the day.

The best day of the year for me always fell on that Wednesday before the NCAA games began. At that magical moment in time, the weather had already warmed up in Nashville, and my newly seeded lawn was gloriously thick and green, surrounded by multi-colored tulips and golden daffodils. The Cubs had not yet started their season, so, officially, they were still tied for first place. Finally, my NCAA basketball bracket was pristine, without a single angry, red “X” drawn through one of my picks. All was right with the world. Of course, within a short period of time, my bracket sheet would have more red on it than was seen after the Battle of Gettysburg, the Cubs would disappoint me yet again (except in 2016), and the hot, summer weather would burn my lawn to a brownish yellow. Still, for one day each year, my life crackled with potential.

This year, we have had to alter our long-established traditions following our move to River Falls. Next week we leave for an extended road trip to Illinois, Alabama, and Florida, culminating in a visit to Huntsville to watch the first two days of the tournament with Kristin and Kevin. I’m sure we will enjoy the warm weather, but watching games with them promises to be the highlight of the trip.

We will return north in late March, by which time, winter should be almost behind us. It will officially be spring by that time, and the weather should be warming up, even in Wisconsin. That being said, granddaughter Abigail has repeatedly reminded us that her school had to declare a snow day last year on her birthday, April 11^th. I think she now expects it to snow every year on her birthday. I know that snow and cold into April is a realistic possibility up here, and that we are not out of the woods yet in terms of inclement weather. But I’m convinced that every day will be sunny and warm from now on. That optimism stems from a line that always reminds me of spring and baseball. It’s one that Ernest Lawrence Thayer borrowed from Alexander Pope for his famous poem, Casey at the Bat: “The hope which springs eternal within the human breast.”

Of course, that poem also reminds me of the Cubs, because, in the end, Casey strikes out and disappoints once again.