by Tamara Hillman
2013

“Spring has sprung, the grass has riz—I wonder where the flowers is?”

I’ll bet my readers (over sixty) recognize that old saying! Hopefully, its true about spring has sprung for most of us in the lower forty-eight by now. But if you’re in Canada, or Alaska, you’ve got awhile yet ‘til snow is gone, and flowers start poppin’ out.

March had everything pollinating at once down here, and with healthy spring winds blowin’, everyone contracted hay fever, and watery, itchy eyes. No fun! But, at least we know the new season has arrived with April comin’ in, and Easter already behind us.

Back in the day, after surviving another long, cold winter in Northeastern Washington, spring felt like pure FREEDOM to all us kids who grew up there—freedom from the house, and out from under the watchful eye of our mothers…Not that we were trying to hide any mischief from her because usually the punishments weren’t worth the crime in our time.

We kids had a blast tryin’ to jump every mud puddle, (hopin’ we’d miss) and we loved to stand out in the warm rain while Mom tried, in vain, to get us back in the house before “we caught our death of cold.” (I know you’ve all heard that phrase before too!)

In our country neighborhood, all the kids for miles around, in all seasons, were like wild Indians runnin’ the ‘Flats’ as we called them. (They actually were the farmlands that stretched between surrounding mountains for several miles.) And we all covered every square inch of those ‘flats’ in our adventures. We were either barefoot, ridin’ a horse, swimmin’ in the ditch, or on our cobbled together, second-hand bikes, racin’ around in the fresh air like it was gonna be outlawed any minute. Kids today have no idea what that kind of freedom felt like unless they still live on the farm or ranch, and can enjoy country life. Even then, it’s not as safe as it was in our day—I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, child molesters, (if caught) would have been strung up in the nearest tree, and buried in the back forty with nary a whisper of them ever passin’ thru’ our little town when we were kids. Problems were dealt with swiftly, and I think correctly back then. Even the ‘Second World War’ was dealt with, and won, in four short years because ‘political correctness’ didn’t have to be taken into consideration. THEY started it, THEY were the ENEMY, and we took whole cities out, (just like in the bible’s old testament) to rid the earth of these cruel dictators and imperialists who thought they could rule the world. ‘Nough said! Sorry, I get off subject easily when I compare how things are done not so efficiently today by comparison to yesteryear…

For Steve and I, spring slows down more than any other season since we retired in Arizona. We have the most company during fall and winter months when our Northern friends and relatives need to come South to see if sunshine still exists, and to escape horrid snow storms and freezing temperatures—but don’t worry, we get even during the summer when we need to run fast and far from the blistering heat of summer down here, and head North for weeks at a time…Life is good!

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Below is a poem I wrote about my granny’s lovely flower garden she guarded like it was ‘King Solomon’s Mines’. She had to put an eight-foot fence around the combined vegetable and flower garden to keep their cattle, wild critters, and us kids out. Only once in a great while, when she would be entering that sacred domain, were we allowed through the tall gate to smell the pretty proceeds of her hard work. No weeds dare enter that soil for Gran kept the rows immaculate.