It was hot for several days in a row, and I thought summer was here. Being a native North Central Idahoan, I should have known better. The wind came up yesterday afternoon, and as I write, it still shrieks and howls. “Spring-o-ween,” for sure.
As I worked the Sunday word search puzzle on the theme “Springtime,” I was reminded of the lovely spring days of yesteryear. We had these things called “rain showers.” “It’s just sprinkling,” we would say, but it might sprinkle for quite a while. It made the grass green and the spring flowers more fragrant. And flowers were everywhere – daffodils, tulips, iris, lilacs, roses, peonies, pansies – all coming forth according to their season. Mornings and evenings were cool. Afternoons were pleasantly warm.
Well, times have changed. We just don’t get those lovely showers anymore, and we have so much wind. And it can turn hot in ways that hardly ever happened. And we don’t have those prolonged showers. We’re lucky if we get any rain at all. And that means we have more dust.
As for the flowers, I think there were more flower gardens in the world back in the day than there are now. For one thing, it takes time to putter around the garden, and people are busier than they used to be. And for another, in the 1950s, I think we lived by different values. We had “carry-overs” from earlier eras – people of the homesteading generation who were well-versed in the home arts. Their orderly yards and gardens were extensions of their orderly homes. It was what they did, and they took pride in it. And that brings us back to the fact that it was cooler and moister.
My mother always saw to it that I had a raincoat, slip-over boots, and an umbrella. I wasn’t fond of wearing boots, but she insisted. Do I need a raincoat today? No, I have hoodies and windbreakers instead. And I guess I don’t have to tell you that I don’t have rubber boots! KW
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