The Endurance of Early Spring

We were in trouble and we knew it. Playing outside in early spring always meant mud and we were full of it, head to toe. Mom must have hated spring for that reason alone.

“Don’t come in here with all that mud on you. Take everything off out on the porch!” she said in terms we fully understood. We knew a bath would also be expected.

Spring meant that we could start running through the neighborhood yards again unimpeded by deep snow. The thawing ground, though, was saturated and produced more mud than a summer rainstorm. No other time of the year is as conducive to making deep, standing mud as spring. But that mud was wonderful because we could smell dirt again, an aroma that had been in hibernation for the past five months.

To me, Easter was the real start of spring. Except for school, Easter was my last behavioral commitment before I could start counting down the days left until June. It was a reminder of the gateway to everlasting life – and summer. Of course, Easter Day is dependent on quirky ecclesiastical rules that make it possible to be as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. This messes with a kid’s concept of time. If it’s early, the countdown to summer is longer and you have to endure more snow and cold days. If it’s late, you endure what seems to be a longer winter up front but a short jaunt to the finish line in early June.

Early spring was always too long for me. Snow was melting much too slowly. Then, just as we could start to see some of our yard, it got covered again by another dumping of snow. So, we shoveled again even though we knew it would melt quickly.

It was a real challenge just to make my coat and boots last through winter and early spring. I was down to about two buckles on each of my uninsulated black rubber boots that I wore over my tennis shoes. My coat was torn, and its pockets and stretchy cuffs were gone. My mittens didn’t match. I was definitely not wearing the same stocking cap I started winter with. I didn’t stop growing during the winter so my coat sleeves were now closer to my elbows than my wrists. The lost and found box at school was full.

As the snow melted, we discovered things. There was the garden hose Dad forgot to bring in. And the good snow shovel. Sure could have used that instead of the old aluminum one with the worn, jagged bottom that caught on everything. There was someone’s mitten and hat, probably lost during that big January sliding crash we were still arguing about. One of the sleds was still there, broken but looking like a memorial. The sap running down the two maple trees in our back yard made them look like they were crying, maybe over all their many lost branches that were now reappearing through the melting snow. Or maybe it was just all the dog crap that was now visible and no longer frozen.

Even though we always found things to do outside in early spring, it was tough. We still needed to wear all our winter gear even though the higher sun was pretty warm at times. Melting snow is not very good for making snowballs and by now we were sick of snowball fights anyhow. That was a good thing because the snow was more like snow cone ice now and really left a mark. And it would just get us into trouble. Packing snow in these conditions gets mittens really wet and cold, making it unpleasant even to wipe your nose with them.

We were done sliding. There wasn’t enough snow left and we were tired of it. Our bike tires were flat and it was too early and wet to fly kites.

One adventure we did pursue was to slide all the way through the culvert that went under Hwy. 61, near the NSP plant. This was not wise, of course, but it was an unmet challenge and there was a layer of ice in it that allowed us to either slide on our stomachs or on a small sled. We had to kick our way through but we made it. There are grates on the ends now, probably placed there by DOT staff who crawled through culverts as kids and are now parents.

Even the most depressing springs finally gave way to warm days, usually overnight. Suddenly, it would be raining hard, washing away any evidence that winter had even visited. Once the leaves sprouted and the yard had been raked and mowed, we knew we had made it.

And we hoped winter would never come again – until late August when we were tired of a hot, humid summer.