April Fool's Day

Well, this obviously isn't April 1st, but nature certainly did fool us today by pouring down snow on us. It started spitting out the white stuff around 3. By the time I left school just before 5, the damp, dark branches were outlined in contrast by the thick, heavy snow.

The just-bloomed flowers were all but suffocated. The crocuses were completely buried and the daffodils were bowed almost to the ground with the weight of white. It was beautiful all the same.

Spring storms like this bring out the analogies. Some of our staff comes from warmer climes (like Hawaii and Jamaica), so they heard all kinds of stories of other April (or later) storms from veteran New Englanders. I recalled the year I graduated from college when a similar storm brought down the lilacs and froze the tulips just days before the big weekend. The grounds crew had to plant all new flowers around the auditorium to cover for the poor frozen tulips.

Another year, some 10 years ago, a colleague and I had tickets to opening day at Fenway Park. We were very excited to be going...we'd even taken the day off from school (a rare thing for me), and were all ready to go when a huge snowstorm descended on us and snowed the game out! I couldn't believe it. They postponed it to the next day, but we were leaving on a choir tour to Russia that day, so I had to give the tickets to my parents. They enjoyed the game while I watched the opening innings in the airport while waiting to board our plane for Moscow.

So it goes in New England. I wouldn't trade it for anywhere else, though.