Guest Blogger!

I am off to a trade show in New Jersey for a long weekend. My good friend and talented writer Carol Visser wrote this piece and was kind enough to agree to be my first ever guest blogger! Enjoy... (PS I apologize for the lack of appropriate spaces and paragraphs. Blogger does not seem to find them necessary and omits any I insert.) Signs of Spring in Maine Glenn and I are from away. Yes, I admit it. Worse, we are from Massachusetts. But before you begin to think of the popular euphemism for folks from MA, especially those that moved to Maine – you know, the one that rhymes with Mass and ends in “..holes”? Please take a moment to realize that we moved here to get away from them. You see, I don’t disagree about that particular rhyming nickname for my former neighbors. For years I had to commute in bumper to bumper traffic, listening to swearing, insults, and threats against other drivers in summer, listening to horns madly laid on in winter, and always wondering if I’d be the next road rage victim in the news. Or perhaps not the victim, if that idiot ahead of me doesn’t get up to at least the speed limit…Sorry, it’s kind of catching. That’s why we had to leave. We were beginning to like who we were less and less, and enjoy our surroundings less and less. The signs of spring in Massachusetts alone could have told us it was time to go. As the weather warmed, the homeless people began to sleep on the park benches again, growling at my dogs as we walked by. The gang members came out of the crack houses and stood on street corners again, shedding clothes to show off tattoos confirming their violent predilections as the temperatures rose. We lived near the beach; great for dog walks in winter but come spring and the seaweed, skates, and fish dead of pollution began to stink up that option beyond using. The trees began to bud with lovely light green buds, but it was hard to notice them against the snowbanks that had been colored dark gray with dirt and car exhaust about 10 minutes after each snowfall. And so on. We thought of the delights that awaited us in Maine. We thought of budding trees, the charm of metal sap pails against venerable old sugar maples. We dreamed of pristine white snow melting into nature clothing the trees with verdant green, of snowmelt rushing towards the sea with whitecaps and that glorious turbulence of sound. And all that is very true and we enjoy it all every year. But are those the real signs of spring in Maine? Perhaps not. The ones I’ve noticed as being definite harbingers of the new season have more a taste of harsh reality. Such as mud season. If you’re not from Maine, you might wonder what that is, exactly. Most places have summer, fall, winter, and spring. Mainers claim summer, fall, winter, mud season, and spring. Maine has a lot of water. So with snowmelt, the ground is saturated quickly and then: MUD. Lots of it. In the yard. On the numerous dirt roads, on one of which I live. In fact, anyplace that isn’t paved, is mud for a few weeks. And not just any mud. This mud is based on clay. I call it “suck your boots off mud”. I call it this from experience. You think there’s an art to driving in snow? Try a dirt road in mud season. That takes a steady hand, a good eye, a willingness to stay below 10 mph and excellent karma in order to not end up in the ditch. Motorcycles. It might be March 29, all of 40 degrees at the warmest part of the day, and there goes a motorcyclist. Naturally with no helmet as there’s no helmet law in Maine. I’ve seen them in sudden April rainstorms, hunkered down over the machine as though to make a smaller target for the raindrops. You can almost hear them thinking, “But it was nice this morning!! And it’s Spring”. And it must be, if the motorcycles have emerged. Skid marks are another sure sign of spring. Suddenly everywhere you drive there are skid marks. Sometimes single tires from motorcycles, sometimes cars, but on nearly every paved road black skid marks appear. Do people really go out of control in their excitement over the weather, or do schoolkids have some competition going on? Spring wouldn’t be spring in Maine without the sightings of antique cars beginning. Enthusiasts gather at restaurants as the evenings begin to linger, admiring the paint jobs and refurbishments done over the long winter, each surely thinking theirs is best. But all are wonderful to see. Vehicles show us that spring has arrived in other ways, as well – I mean besides the absence of chains and snow tires - kayaks and canoes show up atop all manner of vehicles instead of the deer they might have carried in the fall. Yep, spring’s just about here. Robins return along with many other birds; those that have stayed here all along become more visible. Green things begin to emerge, daffodils and crocus – sometimes out of snow- but you really, truly, know that spring is in full swing and summer imminent in Maine when the blackflies hit. And you know what? Even when they do, I still don’t miss living in Massachusetts. Come on up and visit, it’s almost spring!