YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and I want to alert you that you might not see me for a couple of days after Thursday.
Thursday, March 20, is the date of the Vernal Equinox, a day in which daylight begins to overcome darkness.
It is also the beginning of Spring, although Winter doesn’t necessarily listen to such stuff.
It is also the day I’m supposed to scrub the year’s grime from my shower stall. And this could actually take a couple of days.
The problem is that if I should forget to do this annual chore on this day, then I have to wait until the Autumnal Equinox which is in September.
I am a slave to tradition, and this whole cleaning-the-shower-stall business is surely a tradition worthy of keeping.
I like to use 20 Mule Team Borax, and scrub the stall with a washrag which is put out with the trashcart on the following Tuesday. I like to do my shower stall cleaning the old-fashioned way, not resorting to motorized scrubbers and buffers.
Just by scrubbing the walls of the walk-in shower stall a lot more light is reflected through the Bugs Bunny shower curtain.
And that brings joy to my whole household.
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THE WIND BLEW. Overheard a lady at the grocery store sharing her wisdom with the checkout clerk. The winds, she said, were so strong they blew pollen all the way from Western Europe.
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THE GOOD EARTH. In my side yard there is one yellow jonquil which has popped up. It is the long-way-around result of an Arkie road trip Jane and I took to Bigelow, Ark., for the annual Wye Mountain Jonquil Festival. There are seven acres virtually covered with the flowers at the little community west of Little Rock. The local Methodist church sells bulbs and the money goes for missions.
We brought some bulbs home and planted them in the side yard. For several years (after I learned NOT to mow them too fast) we had a spreading patch of jonquils. Just a week or so ahead of the annual Jonquil Festival down at Old Washington.
Then, my spreading hedge hid the plot from the sun and the flowers went away.
This year — no hedge, and I take delight in that lone yellow bloom. Another plant without blooms has sprung up nearby.
MORE GOOD EARTH. The early stages of dandelions are also giving yellow blooms. Until some neighbors gently corrected my ignorance last year, I thought dandelions were only the gossamer things kids like to blow away. No, I learned, the wild weed has a yellow bloom first.
I’m enjoying the blooming of tulip trees, yellow bells, flowering quince and wild pear trees about town and down country lanes.
Some fuzzy green stuff spotted so far on the limbs of my front yard Japanese Cherry Blossom tree, and it has a few tiny blooms. This changes significantly every day.
I know, I know. Winter ain’t done with us, yet.
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A BRIEF MEDICAL STORY for people who are anti-vaccines.
There was an article online last week in ‘LifeScience,’ one of my favorite objective news sources. The article was about a measles outbreak in Texarkana in 1970.
The article was about a local boy who went abroad and brought measles home, and what happened on both sides of the city.
At the time, Texas had no mandates about schools and immunizations. In Arkansas children had to be vaccinated against measles, among other diseases.
In addition, the Arkansas side had a mass immunization campaign to stop the spread of the disease once the outbreak started whereas the Texas side had none.
The US Health Department studied what then happened on both sides of State Line.
Out of 633 cases of measles reported, 606 were on the Texas side.
Now there’s measles in Texas again. Lots of people are just too smart to learn, preferring to get their medical information from a person who SAYS he/she is an expert and who doesn’t go along with vaccinations.
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THINGS I LEARNED from opening e-mail: “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
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WORD GAMES. Those rambunctious boys: Fine and Dandy.
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HE SAID: “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” Dalai Lama, spiritual leader
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SHE SAID: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie, Nobel scientist
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
