Spring, sprang, sprung: Are we safe yet?

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
— Henry Van Dyke

The crocuses are a fake-out. Unlikely flowers, pretty in purple, poke their heads into the sleet and freezing rain. They wear frost on their petals; I wear a wool hat, gloves and a storm coat. What is up with this?

Spring arrived last month, but winter doesn’t want to unclench its fist. I don’t know how they do it, but the prognosticators at the Farmer’s Almanac were dead right about this heinous winter. Last August they predicted a winter of “numbing cold” and “record-breaking” snow. In their words, “It’s going to be very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow.” Not highfalutin’ language, but that about says it, doesn’t it?

The people at the Almanac say they base their predictions on analyses of sunspots, planetary positions and the phases of the moon. The National Weather Service, which bases its forecasts on the most advanced meteorological technology, pretty much got it all wrong. Its scientists said that an El Nino would create a milder-than-average winter. Of course, neither agency can hold a candle to my mother, whose knees told her back in October that a bad winter was coming.

We will long remember the snows of 2011, but there have been other memorable snowstorms and blizzards. Remember the Great Snow of 1717? Four storms left the Northeast under four feet of powder and drifts up to 25 feet high. (No snow-blowers then.)

The Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm of 1772 trapped both men in their homes under three feet of the white stuff. In 1922, the Knickerbocker Storm dumped more than two feet of snow on D.C., collapsing the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater and killing 100 people.

In January 1821, the Hudson River froze over, allowing New Jerseyans to stroll over to the Big Apple.

Many of us have suffered serious winter fatigue. You can admire the pristine mornings and snow-laden trees for just so long. Cravings for carbs have driven our meal choices. Our skin is pasty; our muscles atrophied.

Winter was officially over nearly three weeks ago, and even though I worry about celebrating the season prematurely, I turn to the poets and philosophers who pay homage to the glories of spring:

April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
— Christopher Morley

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
— Rainer Maria Rilke

It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so.
— Mark Twain

Spring is when you feel like whistling, even with a shoe full of slush.
— Doug Larsen

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
— Anne Bradstreet

April is a promise that May is bound to keep.
— Hal Borland

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
— Margaret Atwood

People ask me what I do in winter when there is no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
— Rogers Hornsby

The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.
— Arthur Rubenstein

You can’t see Canada across Lake Erie, but you know it’s there. It’s the same with spring. You have to have faith, especially in Cleveland.
— Paul Fleischman

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.
— E. B. White

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.
— Terri Guillemet

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
— William Shakespeare

Copyright © 2011 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 304.