Wow, as I look out my window I’m struck by the inveterate greyness of March.  Isn’t that what you think of?  March … November … winter’s leaden book-ends.

Back in Philly I remember that March always also spelled the beginning of lacrosse season … wooden sticks and muddy fields and the joy of being outside again after 3 1/2 months of smelly, sweaty gyms.  No boundaries to the fields back then … and days lengthening and the sounds of children’s voices outside of an evening.  Yup, “lacrosse weather!”

Of course it’s “baseball weather” as well.  Different, younger feel to that for me.  The feel of baseball weather takes me back to elementary school, when Johnny Callison was my favorite Phillie.  Now as I age (and some might say, regress) I find myself having “favorite Phillies” again … and wishing we hadn’t buried the damn baseball cards all those years ago.  In a fit of grammar school paranoia, we hid them so well from our neighborhood “enemies” that when we went back to find them later, even we couldn’t ferret them out again.

And DAMN … if we had them in hand today, the Cornblog sibs would probably all be able to retire quite comfortably.

Baseball weather.  Thinking of that I see my father on the patio, Harry Kalas … or By Saam … droning as he smokes and snoozes after a day at work.  (Mom is prowling inside … but we won’t think about that right now.)  There’s Dad, steady, predictable, mysterious in his way.  Or I see him working in his garden, little transistor radio perched precariously on the fence.  The magnolia is blooming, and the radishes are coming up.

Ah radishes – always the first produce in the spring … proudly presented, and not-so-happily eaten, at least by yours truly, as I recall.  (Always felt a little guilty about that … can still feel it here at my desk in Canterbury.)

Here’s to a March Morning … as the Madness approaches … and dark winter recedes.  And Dad, seriously … thanks for the radishes!  I appreciate them now!