Spring Has Sprung

This morning.

There was a kind of a nursery rhyme I vaguely remember from boyhood: 

Spring has sprung.

Fall has fell.

Summer’s here—

So what the hell?

That’s the way I remember it. But all over the Internet are all kinds of versions, a common one being this:

Spring has sprung.

Fall has fell.

Winter’s here.

It’s cold as hell.

Which makes more sense, I guess, than the lines I remember. (I was at an age when knowing something that had the words damn or hell in it was surpassingly naughty—i.e., delightful.)

Anyway, those lines occurred to me this morning when I awoke to find snow scattered about in our yard—and on our car (see pic above).

Two days ago, it was in the upper 60s, and the sidewalks were full of people in summer clothes. (I should hasten to add: All of them were social-distancing.)

In a northeastern Ohio spring, as residents know all too well, we get all seasons recapitulated, sometimes in a single day.

Yesterday, for example, it was not too cold—and then it was—it rained—it snowed—the sun came out—then went away—it was windy—it wasn’t. About the only thing we didn’t have was colorful leaves. Though maybe we could count the pink and yellow blossoms buffeted about by the stiff wind that had cruelly stripped them from their stems?

Right now, as I sit here looking out a window of our living room, I see people walk by in winter attire: heavy coats, wool stocking hats, gloves. Some are walking short-haired dogs that look annoyed. Their grim faces seem to say to their owners: You can choose to be back in a warm place, and you wanted to come out here?!? You, with your winter gear, and I with only a half-inch of hair!

Though Joyce and I have gone walking most mid-afternoons since the shut-down, we will eschew that activity this afternoon. I’ve become a wimp, you see? When I was in my jogging days, I used to go out even in the severest cold and run 4-6 miles. Virtuous I.

But today? I think I’ll sit here and type.