Spring Time in December

The Christmas trees are up and decorated, the houses and trees are lit up nightly, and the stockings have been hung by the fireplace with care. The malls are jammed with stressed out shoppers, the lucky few have already bought and wrapped their gifts, and the college football bowl season is underway. Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like…spring time?

Here in the Northeast, it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s the end of December this year. It actually feels more like spring than winter. Daytime temperatures have been in the high-40’s to mid-50’s, instead of the 30’s. It’s even gotten up to 60 degrees around here! For those that use the Celsius scale, that would be temperatures in the 7 – 15 range. In December! While it has gotten cold a few days, I’ve worn my winter jacket only about 5 times this year. And instead of snow on the ground, the grass is still green. It looks like we’re not going to have a white Christmas this year.

As an adult getting along in years, this really doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to drag out the snow blower or shovel the driveway to be able to go somewhere. I don’t even need to scrape frost off the car windows on the majority of mornings. I don’t need to bundle up to just get the mail from the mailbox and I don’t shiver through the first 10 minutes of my daily commute to and from work. If this is the result of global warming, then bring it on because I could get used to winters like this.

As a kid, however, I would have been going out of my mind, maybe even devastated. Winter break from school would be coming up and there’d be nothing to look forward to. There would be no way we’d be playing ice hockey at the pond from early morning to the time darkness made it impossible to see the black puck any longer. The only pause in the games would be enough time to go home and eat some lunch and slightly thaw out the feet and hands. If it wasn’t cold enough to freeze the ponds, there would be no way we’d be spending most of the day sledding down the big hill in the back of my house, punctuated by a hot chocolate break and finishing up warming next to a roaring fire, because there wouldn’t be any snow.

Sure, we would have found stuff to do. We would have probably played street hockey for a few hours, perhaps switched over to football since the grass wouldn’t have been rock hard, and maybe even rode our bikes somewhere since it wouldn’t have been so cold. But it wouldn’t have been the same. Winter break from school was meant to be spent freezing our little behinds off, doing stuff in the snow or on the ice – and we liked it that way! I don’t remember any of us even hinting that it was too cold to go outside during our time off from school in December.

I have no shame in saying that I’m enjoying the holiday season so far. I don’t need a pile of snow and below zero temperatures to feel the joy of the season, and I certainly don’t need to get numb by running out to the mailbox to know that Santa is on his way. This year, I’m dreaming of a green Christmas. Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Spring Ahead

This last week has been one of the most wonderful weeks I’ve had in months. We have turned the corner from winter to spring, and spring is breaking out everywhere. The daytime temperatures are well above freezing and when the wind isn’t blowing it is actually quite pleasant outside. The trees are starting to bud, the grass has turned ever so slightly greener and flowers are starting to pop up in people’s yards. We’re even starting to reap some benefits from Daylight Saving Time, with the hours of sunlight getting longer.

One thing that happened last week is one of my all-time favorite spring rituals. I had to run out to the store for something and when I came back I heard the sound that tells me it is truly spring – peepers! No, not perverts looking in people’s windows, but those little critters that create a symphony of sound every spring. Until I hear those guys it isn’t spring for me. It doesn’t matter the date or if spring has officially arrived, if I don’t hear those peepers, it’s still winter. After a long, cold winter like we had this year, I could listen to the peepers for hours. It is one of the sounds that truly make me happy every year. I bet when I’m 90 I’ll still love to hear the peepers – that is if I can still hear then!

Another day we had a fairly heavy downpour just before I left for work and it was still raining a little as I drove home. Then, just as abruptly as spring showers start, the rain stopped and the sun came out. In front of me, looming over the highway was a very bright and colorful rainbow. It looked incredible and I kept taking peeks at it as I made my way home. Maybe it’s hokey, but there’s something comforting about seeing a rainbow after heavy rain. It makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.

To top it all off, baseball started last week! I may not be into baseball as much I used to be, but when the season begins it tells me that better things are coming – warmer weather, longer days, being outside more, cookouts, vacations, the beach! Sure, it’s going to be a while before we can do some of these things, like go to the beach, but those wonderful days are coming. There’s nothing like watching a ball game on a lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the summer, sipping a cold drink and relaxing. There are lots of good memories there.

One of the things I used to love to do while watching a game as a kid was to get out my baseball cards and put them in order of the lineup for both teams. Then when the guy came up to hit, I’d look at his picture and check out his stats on the back of the card. Just so you get the complete picture, I had full sets of Topps cards from 1968 – 1975; some in doubles, some in triples, so needless to say I had a lot of cards. How did I get all those cards when I didn’t have the money to buy them? I started out small with just a few packs and I used the doubles and triples to flip cards at recess and got more. Remember that horrible cardboard-like bubblegum that came with the cards? Dentists throughout the U.S. loved that stuff.  Anyway, my friend across the street (the one I almost “killed with kindness”) was always getting packs of cards and when a card he needed was one I had, I’d trade the one card for four or five of his doubles. By the end of the year, not only did he have a full set, I had a full set, too!  

Before I was able to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, I still managed to have a front row box seat to a game. Yup, I got a box big enough to sit in, got my cards and plopped the box down in front of the TV. Voila, box seats in the front row! Dad was willing to play along with my little game for a while and let me sit in the box and watch the game. However, when I asked about hot dogs that was probably pushing it a little too far. Nevertheless, I did enjoy pretending I was at Fenway watching the game live and in color. We didn’t have a color TV yet, so I really was pretending. Yes, those were good times.

I’m looking forward to many more wonderful days in the months ahead. Spring is here and like all the trees and flowers, I feel myself coming back to life. I’ll enjoy the warm sun on my face, having a burger from the grill and going to the beach. I may even enjoy a Red Sox game or two. Just not sitting in a box – I don’t have one big enough to fit me.    

Spring Already?

I know it’s only mid-March, but spring is in the air. It’s not just because Spring Training for baseball is up and running, or because the NHL regular season is coming to an end, or because there’s about 20,000 birds in my yard and its surroundings every morning. It’s mostly due to the mild winter we’ve had. It really already feels like spring.

I’ve enjoyed this winter. I haven’t used the snow blower once this season and I’ve only had to shovel snow twice, and that was more like pushing the light, fluffy snow off the driveway. It hasn’t been very cold either, with only a few days where the temperatures have been below 20 degrees. If this is the effect of global warming, then bring it on! I could handle ten more just like this one. Of course, this is from my perspective as a middle-aged man. As a kid I would have absolutely hated this winter.

The ponds near my house never even froze this winter. Well, maybe they got a thin layer of ice on the top, but they never froze enough for any winter activities. There was no ice fishing this winter, no snowmobiles racing across the ice and snow, and most importantly, no ice skating. Hockey on the frozen ponds was one of the major things that got me through winter as kid. We’d race home from school, dump the books, get our gear and get an hour or two in before it was too dark to see in front of you. On weekends we’d be at the pond from 9am until it was dark, with a quick break for lunch around noon. I don’t think there was ever a winter we didn’t get in a lot of pond hockey from November to March. That would have been unthinkable.

We also got a lot more snow than we do now. If the ponds were buried beneath a pile of snow, we’d shovel it off or use sheets of plywood and push it out of the way to make an area big enough for a decent game. Snow really didn’t stop us, unless there was just too much to move and then we’d wait a few days or a week and then move the snow. While we were waiting, we’d be sledding, building snow forts for snowball fights or playing street hockey when the road was clear. If we missed a day or two of school, even better! That left us more time to be doing fun stuff. At least it was fun then; now, not so much. 

I just can’t imagine going through the whole winter as a kid and not being able to go sledding, have snowball fights or play ice hockey. Street hockey wasn’t a bad short-term solution, but it was nowhere near as good as ice hockey. If you’ve ever been hit by one of those orange street hockey balls or pucks when it is cold outside, you know what pain is. Maybe that's why we used tennis balls that had lost their bounce. Somehow, getting hit with a puck while playing ice hockey never seemed as bad as getting hit with one of those street hockey balls. Sledding down our own Mount Everest was always fun, as was the hot chocolate and roaring fire when we were done. Those were the carefree days of childhood.

But as the temperature outside climbs into the 60’s and there’s not even a hint of any snow around my area, I just have to smile. There’s no sadness here on my part. I don’t skate on the ponds anymore, I haven’t gone sledding since the kids were little and the last time I had a mini snowball fight my shoulder hurt for two days. Honestly, I’d rather be sitting on the back deck in the warm sunshine than be sitting in a cold pile of snow after slipping and falling. These are the not-so-carefree days of adulthood. Call it the year without a winter or just an early spring, it makes no difference. Spring is in the (warm) air.   

I Can't Wait Until...

Quite often I hear people say something like, “I can’t wait until…”, where the “until” is somewhere in the future, sometimes many months or even years. I hear people say at Thanksgiving that they can’t wait until Christmas (like I did last week) because it’s the most wonderful time of the year. I hear people say at Christmas that they can’t wait until New Year’s because with the new year is a new start, resolutions and all. I hear people say in January and February that they can’t wait until spring when it starts getting warmer, and the trees and flowers come back to life. I hear people say in April and May that they can’t wait until summer when the weather gets really nice and they can take a vacation. I hear people say in August that they can’t wait until the fall when it’s a little cooler, the kids go back to school and the leaves on the trees turn amazing colors. I hear people say in October that they can’t wait for Thanksgiving because… On and on it goes.

What’s the matter with right now? It seems that we as humans are always looking to the future, looking forward to something further on down the line, something that isn’t… now. Whatever it is, it can never come too fast and it always takes too long to get to that point. Too many times, the things we’re so looking forward to finally come and they disappoint us because they don’t live up to what we built up in our minds. What then? Well, we already have the next thing to look forward to.

I remember growing up and looking ahead to many things and feeling like it was taking so long to get there. As I’ve mentioned before, I always looked forward to the day I could beat my older brothers at something, or at least be as good at something as them. When I finally got there, it didn’t matter because they had moved forward just as I had. Around 4^th grade I started looking ahead to the day I’d leave elementary school and go to junior high school (what’s now middle school) in 7^th grade. While it was nice to leave the “little kids” behind, I quickly found out how much I missed, and never appreciated, recess. When I was in junior high I looked forward to the day I’d go to high school because that meant I wasn’t a kid anymore. But when you’re a freshman and the low man on the totem pole, you’re still a kid to all the upper classmen and you’re treated as such.

When I was first in high school I couldn’t wait until I got my license and could drive, then I would have true freedom! However, there was often not a car available and when it was, most times there was an errand that had to be run as part of being able to use the car. So before I could go out with my friends I had to run to the store and get some milk or bread or something. Oh, yeah, don’t forget to put some gas in the tank, too. I guess I learned that with freedom comes responsibility – and expenses. When I was in my junior year of high school I couldn’t wait until senior year when we would be top dogs of the school. Then senior year went by so quick that we never really got to savor our lofty position and it was on to college.

After two years of college I couldn’t wait until college was done. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, I truly did. I loved the schedule, the way you didn’t have to go to class, the way the professors treated you like an intelligent young adult, not a kid. But I was tired of the homework, the studying and trying to get everything done while working 30 hours or more a week. Two years later, my last final finally arrived and I whipped through it feeling elated as I passed it in to my professor, thinking that I’d never have to do this again. A few of us finished at the same time and talked in the hallway as we went to our cars. One person was going to grad school, another person already had a job and the rest were going to start looking for a job. However, I had never thought that far ahead; I just wanted to be finished with college. I got to my car and just sat there thinking the same thought for ten or fifteen minutes, “Oh my gosh. I’m done with college and I HAVE TO GET A REAL JOB!” I felt like that was it, my carefree, young adult days were over and now I had to get a full-time job and be an (gulp) adult. I turned the key, took one last look around and started driving home. That ride home was the longest, most depressing ride I had ever been on. In a short amount of time, maybe half an hour, I had gone from the highest elation to the lowest depression, all because “I couldn’t wait until…”

Now that I’ve hit the half century mark I have a bit of a different attitude, or maybe perspective. I feel like the passing of time is going faster and faster every year, not staying the same and definitely not slowing down. If there were a Father Time, I’d find out where he lives and tell him to knock it off, to stop speeding up time for me. I’d tell him I want time to pass as slow as it did when I was in elementary school, when it seemed like the school year took forever; like it did when my brothers were always bigger, stronger and better at sports than me; like it did when eighteen seemed like it was so far away that I’d never get there. I’d tell him to ease back on the throttle a bit; that it’s OK, because I CAN wait until Christmas and New Year’s and spring. I like right now and want to enjoy it a little longer before it’s gone.

Spring Is In the Air

Spring is in the air. There’s about a million birds around my neighborhood, chirping away like they’re on "Bird Idol" and gathering stuff for their nests. The grass, while not what I’d call green yet, is starting to come alive. We’ve even had a couple of days where I didn’t need to wear a jacket! This being New England, those days were followed by temperatures in the 30’s again, which felt even colder after having been in the high 60’s or 70’s. The first day of spring was last Sunday, so of course we got some snow on Monday. I would have been surprised if it didn’t snow.

The biggest difference, however, has been the number of people outside. People are actually going outside for longer than it takes to get from the house to the car. One of my neighbors has two kids, a boy 5 and a girl 3. They’ve been riding around on their little bikes and using the swing set. I heard their voices the other day, looked out the window and saw them swinging up to the sky, having the time of their lives. They had their winter jackets and hats on but you would have thought it was the middle of July with the fun they were having. Just the fact that they could get to their swing set after all the snow we got was an accomplishment. 

My neighbor across the street has two boys, about 11 and 9. Those two have been outside playing basketball, street hockey and baseball. They’ve been tossing the baseball back and forth and they even have one of those pitch back devices so they can throw the ball at it and have it come back to them. What caught my attention one day was the older boy trying to make the younger one do something by throwing him to the ground, sitting on him and torturing him into doing whatever it was. Nothing like the love between brothers. Eventually, the younger and smaller one wiggled his way free, put a move on the older one and was suddenly on top. The older boy started yelling and screaming and about 30 seconds later their mother came out and told them to break it up and to stop making so much noise. The younger boy never yelled or screamed; he just worked his way out of the death hold his older brother had him in and came out on top. Did I mention that the younger boy is also smaller? Yet the older, bigger boy did all the yelling and screaming. As far as I’m concerned, justice was not done.

When one my older brothers got me in one of those choke holds when we were kids, I would try my hardest to get out of it and gain the advantage. I may have gotten lucky once or twice and escaped, but that just meant when they got me locked up again it was a little rougher and harder. However, I never stopped trying to get out of whatever hold they had me in. Why bother, why not just take it like a man and get it over with? Because it was kind of a measure of how “big” I was getting. If I could make them work to subdue me, that meant I was getting stronger. If I could escape, even for a few seconds, it meant I was getting tougher. I looked forward to the day when I could say that I beat them, that I got away fair and square, because that would mean I was on their level. All the kids I knew that had older brothers wanted the same thing – to be as strong as, as tough as, as good in sports as... as cool as their older brothers. Ultimately, what we wanted was to not be their little brother anymore, but to just be their brother.

However, we never got that victory as kids. Justice was not done. By the time we thought we were actually able to come out on top, our older brothers had moved on to bigger and better (maybe, maybe not) things. I’m sure they had long forgotten the times they knocked us down and pinned us to the ground, or held us in a head lock and gave us noogies, or grabbed us by the arms and gave us Indian rope burns. They probably even forgot they had given us the dreaded Cherokee Drag where they knocked us down and dragged us around by our legs, taking us across the driveway or street and into the bushes. In the summertime. With or without a shirt on our backs. Nothing like the love between brothers.  

But something happened to us little brothers, too. We also grew up and moved on to bigger and better things. Revenge? Nah, not for me. My older brothers were the ones giving me rides to my baseball games or somewhere else in their cool cars. While other kids got dropped off in their parent’s station wagon, I got dropped off in a souped up Olds 442 or a Chevy Camaro, tires spinning and tunes cranking. When I needed a ride, they were there. When I had one of those questions I just couldn’t ask Mom or Dad and knew my friends didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, they were there. I soon realized that when I needed just about anything, even some encouragement about something, they were there. At some point, I had crossed some unseen dividing line and was now on their side. Sure they still gave me a hard time, but it was different. Somehow I was no longer their little brother, and I may have still been their younger brother, but I was now just their brother.  

Now, some forty years later, we still make fun of each other at times and give each other a good ribbing when the opportunity presents itself. They may have laughed more then, but not anymore. Especially now that some of them are grandparents and proud card-carrying members of AARP!