SPRING IS SPRUNG

March 21, 2011: It's snowing. That's one of the ways we celebrate spring in these latitudes. In Otter River we have similarly celebrated Palm Sunday, Easter, Mother's Day, and conceivably Memorial Day. I remember a snow shower on May 22, and concern about frost and the newly planted flowers at the cemetery in the last days in the month. I also remember my grandmother expressing concern that the marchers in the Memorial Day parade might faint from the heat -- it had happened, she said.

At the other end of the calendar, we have had frost before the end of August. My father didn't attempt to grow pumpkins, as much we kids wished he would, because, he said, the frost always got them. What kind of growing season is too short for pumpkins? New England pioneered in manufacturing for good reason. By contrast, the year I bought my motorcycle it was 100 degrees on Labor Day. At the family reunion I gave rides to anyone brave enough to accept.

My mother reports seeing snow in Otter River in every month of the year except July -- and frost in July, once. I remember as a child being impressed by a change of temperature of almost 100 degrees within a week or two.

Meteorologists love New England weather for the challenge of trying to figure out what it will do next. The rest of us accept it more or less philosophically, and newcomers get used to it. I remember a woman from Poland taking exception to snowstorms through March and into April, after what had looked like the dawn of gentler weather: "In my country, yes, it is cold in the winter, but when spring comes, it's spring." What must a person from India think when they step out the door into one of those crystal-clear, still days with the thermometer below zero, especially if their car won't start? From Poland as well as India, our weather looks like some kind of mistake.

Today's snow doesn't bother me. How much harm can there be in an inch or two of soggy snow that melts on contact with blacktop? The crocuses and daffodils go about their business, snow notwithstanding. And for a day or two it'll whiten all those dirty snowbanks.