A Lighter View
Farewell to spring
By K.E.H. Stagg

May 28, 2009

I used to think that Ohio had the country’s second-worst winters, following hard on the heels of Minnesota. I’m now convinced that Pennsylvania has the country’s worst springs, mainly because we never get spring!

Does anyone else wonder why we vacillate between winter and summer without ever having spring? The holiday weekend saw near 90-degree temperatures, loads of sunshine and probably more than a few sunburns. Only 2 days later, Dillsburg’s residents shivered in sub-50 temperatures, madly hunting for our winter clothes that we packed away in the basement for 6 months, which leaves us stuck wearing open-toed shoes in the damp cold.

Something is seriously wrong with this picture. Besides the fact that I packed up my sweaters and wool socks too soon, there just shouldn’t be this huge temperature fluctuation between 90 and 50. We’ve done this for an entire month now, and it doesn’t get any better with repetition. What’s wrong with having a real spring?

Instead of March being “in like a lion, out like a lamb,” the turbulent month of question is May, which reminds me of Ogden Nash’s famous limerick debating the world’s ending in fire or ice. He must’ve been to Dillsburg in May is all I can figure; he certainly got it right that either extreme “would suffice” in bringing a speedy end to humanity.

The plants that frosted over twice already now lie battered and beaten down to the ground by the weight of pouring rain. The motorcyclists that ripped down Route 15 in their thousands just 5 days ago are now huddled under bridges and overpasses, wondering why they thought taking part in Rolling Thunder was such a good idea and worrying that they may never reach home.

If they asked me, I’d tell them it’s the trade-off all of us made for living in an area free of quintuple-lane traffic traveling in one direction; the closest bodies of water are small enough that tsunamis will never pose a threat, and where the tallest buildings are under 30 stories tall. In exchange, we’ve given up spring.

Don’t get me wrong. I miss spring—a lot! But if it’s a choice between living in the country where there still is country and it hasn’t all been paved over, or having temperatures that fluctuate so wildly a person’s wardrobe is constantly either too hot or too cold, the temperature ambivalence wins, hands-down.