I yoost go nuts pour le Printemps

With all respect to the artistic excellence and the depth of emotion shown by Jorgi Jorgenson:

When did Holmes return from his deadly tumble over the Reichenbach Falls.
The birthplace of meringue, if you can believe
In the Springtime, my dear compatriot

And Whan was it that Aprille with his shoures soote,
bathed every veyne in swich licour?
I believe the same April that
bred lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing memory and desire,
stirring dull roots with spring rain.

When is the resurrection of Christ
When is opening day for baseball
When can I open my inside world to the outside

Spring is that time of year that has a lot to proclaim. It’s a little like Friday afternoon just after work when a whole world of the soul is possible. The Pirates, as I write at 1 and 7, have me for a month, maybe two, maybe all the way to the All Star Game. I watch Angels in the Outfield (Do not even ask which version, there is only one version and yes Spring Byington is in it, as is the Gulf Station at North Craig and Bayard) with a clump in my throat and tears in my eye. It may be the closest I come to a Fundamental Christianity all year.

Yes, there is sans doute a spring in my step. There I’ve said it for all the world to hear!

And when I was just a youngun’, the event of the year would swing in the spring. It was better, I promise you than, Christmas morning. More spirit filled than Easter. It always happened on the Friday around May 20th, my old man’s birthday, which we would celebrate on the veranda of a stately cafeteria while smeared colored lights and hot oily smelling machines hummed.

The Penn Hills School District would quit an entire Friday this miraculous day. Long rolls and booklets of tickets went on sale in the classroom in early April for the school picnic at discounted prices.

Long suffering, the Catholic Church wasn’t nearly as accommodating. Oh the sin of meat on Friday more deadly than the sins of bacon frying! Standing on hot black top next the mechanical grind of Looping Loops, forced by the evil spirit to forgo the dull pasteboard taste of Mrs. Paul’s. That first bite, the saliva provoking, deep red, rouge of the hot dog. A verbal prayer as slap across the forehead “Oh my God, I have most heartily sinned, but honest I forgot it was Friday and I’m so tired of macaroni and cheese, mea maxima culpa and yes ketchup on the burger, buddy.”

There is an amusement park, east side of Pittsburgh reborn each spring of the year after the dead tracking cold of winter and ice that even an Eliza blast furnace city side couldn’t melt. Deep in the industrial maw of America the park was created circa 1898 so that the power companies could create a destination for under utilized electric trolleys on the weekend. It was purchased from the Kenny Family. It was named Kennywood. Each year it rises brighter than Camelot out of the brown shallow waters of the Mon River.

Just today, my jacket rakishly open in the parking lot at work, my mind clicked stop, a small silver bearing dropping into a roulette slot: 1958. Just a kid formulating the universe in my own peculiar image of twirling stars and galaxies in the back yard, chilled despite the early warmth, and romance a plenty. All time sprayed before me. I see myself then seeing myself now.

First it’s the Jack Rabbit, then headin’ for the Pippin and after that a penny for a post card of Linda Darnell, her long hair to her shoulders, that creamy creamy skin.Silver Rockets elegantly swinging over the lake. The crazy gypsy lady in the glass booth from a thousand centuries ago swings her finger my way says, “Got you, darling.”

I almost smile.