Reading the Signs

Old Dobbin
Reads these signs
Each day
You see, he gets
His corn that way
Burma Shave

I’m starting to think I’ve exhausted the Burma Shave / epitaph collections as appetizers for my Tuesday columns.  There are more in each book, but I’ve used the best of them.  Question:  should I do something else?  Or should I just plunge in with my blogging?

I have a very good friend who does scrapbooking.  She’s not a fanatic, but she is insistent that after each travel adventure, we really should do a scrapbook.  I now have a canvas bag full of bits and pieces of my recent trip to England.  In a few days Becky and I will sit down with my friend and each put together a scrapbook.  One of the good parts of doing this is that it very vividly brings back memories of the trip, and I’m sure we’ll be laughing and sighing and sharing stories as we do this important finalization of the adventure.

Several people have suggested I should send Betsy and some members of the Monday Bunch to England – and have someone fall ill and wind up in the hospital.  Connor maybe?  Hmmmm . . . working . . .

Spring had sprung in England.  Every park offered wide swaths of daffodils, every tree and shrub that could bloom was in bloom, a joy to the eyes.  Now I’m back home and while the grass is greening, so far I haven’t seen so much as a crocus, much less a daffodil.  But buds on trees are swelling and I did see the green tips of tulips pushing their way up into the sunlight in a flowerbed.  So pretty soon, in the manner of the far north, spring will fairly explode.  Everything will bloom at once, from crocus to tulips to crab apple trees to dandelions – I remember seeing a dandelion come up blooming through a late snowfall one harsh winter.  This is Minnesota, where spring and fall are each about ten days long and you dare not put your potted plants out onto the patio until after Mother’s Day and you send your children out trick or treating wearing snowsuits under their costumes. Here are daffodils in Green Park.

One thing I'd remembering this morning is that the men in red coats and black-bear-fur hats  are not mere ornaments at the Tower of London and outside Buckingham Palace.  The weapons they carry are not antiques, but very modern automatic rifles.  One tends to forget they are real soldiers.