Spring Clues

After a rather cold and snowy start to February, this past week turned relatively mild and winter precipitation-free. It’s a welcome annual ritual, I suppose. At some moment on the calendar—typically the last week in February or early March—clues abound that the beginning of the end is near. As the birds get louder, more numerous, and more active, winter slowly but surely transitions to spring. The snows melt and the earth shows itself again with increasing signs of green amidst the lifeless brown. And the days get longer and longer. Can the pansies be far behind?

Running my errands in fifty-degree temperatures this week—with a complementary light southerly breeze—brought me back to a time and place: the winter-turns-to-spring days of my youth. The sights, sounds, and smells—the clues—of those bygone days came attached to a fair share of excitement and high expectations. Yes, I realize that some bitterly cold days are still possible and, too, that some of worst New York City blizzards occurred in March. But even the most powerful last gasps of winters’ past never derailed or circumvented the inevitable changing of the seasons. Play ball!

What's missing now is the passion of youth. It can’t be retrieved or resuscitated because it exclusively belongs to the young. It’s just the nature of things. Once upon a time, I got high on the thought of Major League Baseball’s spring training taking flight. Hope always sprang eternal for baseball fans in March. Our favorite teams’ records were always zero and zero. My team, the Mets, was tied for first place with everybody else’s. Even though the spring training games didn’t count, I nonetheless loved tuning into them. Hearing the three voices of summer and spring as well—Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner—after a long winter’s slog—was especially exhilarating. Baseball was back and would be around for many months to come. Could the summer and summer vacation be far behind?

Then there was baseball—of the small “b” variety—played in every incarnation imaginable in the old neighborhood. From Wiffle ball to “Throw It Against the Wall” to stickball, March was the segue. A mild one meant the fun and games could commence sooner rather than later. I’ve got stickball scorecards from forty-plus years ago—in which my companions and I kept records of our games and cumulative stats—where our opening salvos occurred in March, usually in the final weeks and days when Mother Nature cooperated. Our scorekeeping chronicled the game’s date, its start and end times, and the temperature upon the first pitch. Visible from our playing grounds was an Exxon gas station clock/thermometer and area icon, which loomed like a colossus in the distance. It's sadly no more, too.

Those were definitely the days. When the first hints of spring ushered in a freedom of sorts. Honestly, I would not want to relive them hour by hour, day by day, and year by year, but I’d relish replaying the best moments, provided I could pass on the worst of them. But since none of that’s possible, I’ll just breathe it all in and remember when the seasonal change brought with it a special charge and singular anticipation. 

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)