Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Celebrate May!

April is almost gone. May arrives next week with all its importance. Several big days here at 3rd and College. My birthday and anniversary. The end of school for another year. Several religious holidays. In Missouri, state workers and some schools take a day off to celebrate Harry Truman's birthday on the 8th. Then there is Memorial Day, which has been proclaimed the unofficial beginning of summer.

And what month is not complete without its odd festivals. Pella, Iowa, celebrates its Dutch heritage with the Tulip Time May 7-9. It's a great way to see thousands of flowers in one place. My family and I went one year. It was cold and rainy, so there was not much enjoyment. the flowers were droopy because of the wind, and some of the events got canceled, so we did not stay long.

Many other communities around the globe have their special days, too. In a quick search, I discovered that England has two interesting ones. One is the Rochester Sweeps Festival, in which chimney sweeps have a big party with music and dancing. The other I found was the Cheese Rolling at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire, England. From what I can tell, people actually win prizes for rolling a round block of cheese down a very steep hill. And this thing has been going on for generations! Sounds like fun. My problem would be eating the cheese instead of rolling it.

So, enjoy May to its fullest. Enjoy the warming temperatures before the heat of summer melts us away. Unless of course, you live South of the Equator, where you are entering the cold season.

Are there any interesting festivals where you live or that you have heard of? Tell me about them.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Passing thoughts

April has arrived. There were no major “April Fools” jokes around here, other than my son putting an “engagement announcement” on his Facebook page. We played along and emailed him that he needs to tell us such news before “going public”. He wrote back to tell us it was an April Fools joke. I wrote back that now I needed to send another email to everyone in the our address book the truth. He wrote back thinking I was serious. We fooled him! Our daughter had told us it was not real before we ever wrote him.

April is a good month to have a harmless day of jokes, as it is a crazy month weather wise. It was 60 and sunny last week. There were snow flurries earlier today, and tomorrow is supposed to be in the 50s. Welcome to Springtime in Missouri. I cannot find it, but Mark Twain is supposed to have said that if one does like the weather here, wait a little while and it will change. While that quote isn't necessarily his, he did say this: “In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” And this, in an editorial: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”