The Five Best Things About Spring

I don't get quite as worked up about April as, say, T.S. Eliot. But here in the northeast, when the snow melts, the mud gurgles, and the college kids go home to wherever college kids live, I do start to feel rejuvenated, and with good reason. Here, specifically, are my top five reasons why.

Playoff Hockey

If ice hockey was a question in the bygone SAT analogies section, then the
playoffs : regular season :: Angelina Jolie : _______

A. Your mom
B. Your sister
C. Your cousin
D. Your Aunt Edna

Rivalries, overtime, guts, goals, grizzle and thread; the playoffs have it all, and every game matters. I don't even care who's playing — I can sit down on any given night, and watch whatever game is on, and be happier than a pig in shit.

Baseball on the Radio

I had the distinct pleasure twice this week of listening to the Red Sox game on the way to work in the morning. The occasion was an oddity — their season-opening series in Japan — but it reminded me that my baseball soul is putty in the hands of seasoned announcers like the Sox' Joe Castiglione or the Phillies' Harry Kalas. Hearing those guys on the radio is what the season is all about. There's something so simple, so analog and genteel about experiencing a ballgame that way. I hope it never goes away.

Green Becoming the New Brown

Spring is when you look out the window and the dominant color of vegetation switches from brown to green. You throw on some shorts, get out into the air again, dig around the thawing ground, and sow what you later want to reap.

I was never much of a flower guy until we bought our house. But now it's our yard I have to look at, day in and day out, and I get to jonesing for those early crocuses to start opening (we've got two out at the moment), the daffodils to shoot up, and the lilacs to bloom. It's nice to have all that color in our lives again. And hey — I can admit it — the lilacs smell good out the front door.

Beer in a Can

I like good beer. A fresh pint of Bellhaven, or Murphy's, or Old Speckled Hen at a place with clean tap-lines, or a nice bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with dinner is just transcendent.

But after a day of working outside in the yard, or on the house — when you're tired and sweaty and needing a shower, there are few sounds more satisfying than the expectant release of a carbonated pop-top. And if you've got a respectable old school brewery nearby, you can even do a far sight better than delving into Anheuser-Busch or kitschy PBR territory. During the warmer months, no matter what bottles I've got in the fridge, I tend to also keep cold some canned 'Gansett or Yuengling (America's oldest brewery).

Ah hell, in a pinch, even the High Life will do.

The First Saturday in May

The first Saturday in May puts us firmly in the wheelhouse of spring: it's officially time to plant the vegetables, to drink bourbon, and to turn on the TV for the most exciting two minutes in sports.

In horse racing — and in the Kentucky Derby especially, in a field so crowded that it's pretty much impossible to run away with the race before the final stretch — no matter whom I've bet on and where they're running, I get chills when those nags come around that clubhouse turn and the track announcer bellows, "And DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!"