Fun Stuff
It's April, so this must be spring!
That's what the calendar says...
Plus we have just celebrated Easter weekend, another indicator, no matter what date the celebration happens to fall on.
This year, at the foothills of the Rocky Mt's. in southern Colorado, the weather is very spring like. In fact the temperatures are a little above normal. I haven't heard anyone complaining.
But the early spring weather here is just as unpredictable as it was when I lived in the Midwest and in the North. April 1st - or later - could bring days like we're having now or a snowstorm - and everything in between. Have you ever attended an outdoor sunrise service with a raw wind howling? No? You haven't lived! There was the wonderful breakfast offered when the service was over as compensation.
As a child, did Easter Sunday bring a new outfit complete with patent leather shoes, a little purse, and a hat? Were you lined up outside with your siblings where you squinted into the sun while your Dad took a photo?
Being the young scamp that he was, my husband has one of the zaniest memories of Easter finery. His mother had taken Bill and his siblings to visit an aunt, and somehow - in spite of a very tight budget - she managed to cloth them in new outfits. The boys had white dress pants and new white shirts. Knowing her boys she threatened them within an inch of their lives to stay clean while she attended to her own toilette.
While passing the time Bill and a cousin wandered into the bedroom of the uncle and aunt, and opened the top drawer of the bureau. They saw a tube of black ink there and without a second thought the precocious child squeezed a little out onto his left hand. Oh, oh. Remembering the warning he kept his hands well away from his clothing, but what to do? Quickly he stuck his hand into his pocket. With no time to rectify the situation that hand stayed in the pocket for hours!
Lest I doubted this tale, on a visit to see his parents many years ago, his dad pulled out some photographs. And sure enough, there was one of Bill and his cousins and his brothers and sisters on that visit to his aunt and uncle's farm.
And the little guy had his left hand in his pocket.
May you be enjoying all the indications that spring is coming, whether it be Easter Sunday memories, early spring flowers showing themselves, or buds on the trees in your yard.
Cute picture. Good story. 😊 It's spring again. Aren't we glad?!
ReplyDeleteEaster is, and always has been, my favorite holiday!
ReplyDeleteIt is a time of joy, unmarred by the unrealistic expectations of Christmas (at least in my less-than-functional family). And, yes, it was greeted in my childhood with a new outfit. One year, my mother selected an orange and white check dress at J.C. Penney, firm in her conviction that a dark-haired, dark-eyed child like me ought to look best in oranges, browns and greens. I disliked the dress, but, if it had to be, and it had, then I was determined to have also the matching patent leather shoes and handbag! My mother protested against shoes (and bag) that only went with one dress and insisted that I had to have another dress with which I could wear the shoes. And a helpful sales clerk found a beautiful one, a pale blue printed with spring flowers and bright orange butterflies . . . and was shocked at how much prettier I looked in that dress than the orange one. And how perfect it looked with the orange shoes and bag. I had to wear the orange check for Easter, but I wore the blue one much more often.
As for weather, Palm Sunday and Easter in Alabama generally mean tornadoes. My first Palm Sunday in Alabama was marred by a rash of tornadoes that swept across the state Sunday morning, with dozens of casualties -- especially at churches where the warnings were unheard and therefore unheeded. My own church bought a weather radio afterward, monitored by the adults tending Sunday School. This year, the tornadoes hit the Wednesday before Palm Sunday.
That kind of volatility is just a fact of life where warm air rushing up from the Gulf clashes with cold fronts sweeping out of Canada or Colorado, and the worst collisions seem to occur here in early spring.
Such volatile weather occurring during these Sundays, especially Easter, remind me of when Christ died on the cross. The earth quakes, graves were opened, and the rocks
Deletesplit. That must have been left a very big impression upon those who lived nearby! Especially when some in the graves rose and appeared to many, and the temple veil was torn from top to bottom.