A springtime sampler
Your attention please, friends. I realize that you are very excited about this warm weather and can hardly be bothered to read some random handsome person’s article, but I implore you, read this one. I’m not sure quite how to break this to you, Colby, so I suppose I’ll come right out and say it. You are embarrassing yourselves. I realized this weekend that Colby, while very good at doing winter and certainly no slouch at autumn, is woefully ill-equipped to handle the spring season. You know, printemps. Primavera. Frühling. “Yahtzee weasel,” as I once overheard an insane man in the Portland Greyhound station call it, though to be fair I cannot say for sure that he was talking about spring.
Where was I? You being a disappointment, yes, thank you for reminding me. Have a toffee. I realized this, as I was lounging on the grass Saturday afternoon, when I heard some person playing possibly the strangest collection of music ever out of their dorm window. The playlist began with the song “Love Shack” by the B-52’s. This song was followed by, and it is important that you know I am not lying, at least seven DMX songs. And before you ask, no, they did not even play DMX’s excellent “Love Shack” cover. Colby, you damned stubborn ox of a school, I know you’re excited. So am I. But let’s do this thing right.
So, just for you, I have decided, at great personal risk of boredom, to brainstorm a few fun, thematically appropriate activities for the spring. One of my all-time favorite spring activities is the picnic, and it just happens to be one of the easiest too. All you need is a blanket, a friend and a basket for some nourishment. For food, I generally pack a bottle of vodka and several live ferrets, though I’m told sandwiches work pretty well too.
Another great springtime activity is baseball, either playing it with a few good buddies or going to a game with one of the many fine local teams, such as the Portland Sea Dogs or the Aroostook County Sans-Culottes. The nice thing about baseball is that you can scrap together a game with any number of people and games will often run interrupted for almost 12 minutes before someone starts taking it too seriously and talks a load of garbage about things like “ground rule doubles” and “corked bats.”
It’s not that hard, friends. I know we haven’t had a proper spring in a while, but we can do a little better than we’ve been doing. Next weekend, let’s try to improve kite-flying by 40 percent and up the idle cloud-watching by at least half. I don’t know, maybe a little imagination here. I can’t do this by myself.