What do you consider sure signs of spring?
For me the list isn’t very long: puddles, potholes, robins and raspberry twist cones. It’s hard not to think of those things with spring just a few short days away.
Like most of you, a few long weeks ago, I was not sure we’d ever see spring. Yet, here it is. I’m not naïve, I knew it would come to Minnesota eventually. I was just getting really, really, sick of winter.
But, I digress.
Spring is puddles. Those huge puddles that form on the streets when the sewer drains are still frozen over with ice and snow and there is no place for the melting snow to flow. You know that kind of puddle. The one your car glides through, up past the middle of your wheel rim, right after you drove over to Montevideo and paid 8 bucks for the Super Wash. Don’t forget those fun puddles that seem to find their way to your side of the car every time you park and need to get out of the car. Have any of you noticed that your spouse seems to engage special puddle radar that allows his side of the car to be puddle free while your side of the car looks like the Pacific Ocean? Another category of puddle is the sock and shoe glutton that has no conscience. The real peril of the sock and shoe glutton puddle lies in the facts that there is no way to avoid them and no way to tell how deep they.
Spring is potholes. Every Minnesotan who has a driver’s license knows that a pothole is a pit or hole in a road surface produced by wear and weathering. One sure way to fail your driving test is to hit a pothole. The individuals who are scoring the test do not like hot coffee spilled on their lap and they get very upset when the pothole is so big and so deep that they are unable to get a cell phone signal to call for a wrecker. Trust me!
Spring is robins. Every spring all of us impatiently wait for the first robin to appear. These quintessential early birds of spring bring joy to the winter, worn human spirit. Robin sightings will soon be the talk of the town. Even though the frost is out of the ground below the snow cover, I think it will be a few more weeks before we see them tugging on earthworms.
Finally spring is a raspberry twist cone from Art’s Dairy Freeze. Yep! You guessed it. Art’s is open for business. For those of you not familiar with Art’s - well let me put it this way, it’s akin to the popcorn stand in Granite. Art’s is located on Black Oak Avenue. I can remember on the first warm day of spring, stubborn snow still sticking to the soft soil, walking my middle school students from the school to Art’s for a free cone. The school is gone, but Art’s lives on!
Enjoy your sure sign of spring. I am. Today’s special flavor was watermellon!
