Rushing the Season

Here are some tulips
from a bygone April,
to cheer up
a foggy, frozen,
snow-flurrying day.



Enough of that
brisk north wind!
Some of us
here
are ready for
Spring!
 

Mary's New Blog

Ever do a Google search
on your own name?

I did that last night
and found another
blog with the title
"Mary's Musings."

It's a very nice blog,
too, although it hasn't
been active for
quite a few months.

Still,
finding it made me
want to have a blog
of my own
with a more distinctive
name.

I did a Google search
on
"reckon i should tell this?"
and found no blog
with that name.

So now there is one!
Mine.

reckon i should tell this?

Hope you've enjoyed reading
my own "Mary's Musings"
and that you'll drop in
on "reckon i should tell this?"
too,
from time to time.

The words in bold font, underlined,
above,
are a clickable link.

Just right-click on them,
and choose
"open in new window"
if you want to have both
my blogs
open at the same time
in your browser.

Happy reading!

Lincoln's Birthday

The calendar cycles,
and suddenly we are in a year
when Lincoln's birthday
falls on a Monday.

In his honor, here are some
tulips that I shot a few
years ago, although not in
wintry February.

Okay,
not so much in Lincoln's
honor as to add
some cheery color to
a gray February 2007
morning.

I had to actually have a look at
my kitchen calendar
to verify
that it's not a post office
and bank holiday.

Whew!

That'll be February 19,
the third Monday in February,
which Congressional wisdom
decades ago made
into a three-day weekend
by designating a
moveable date for Washington's
birthday.

It's commonly called 
Presidents' Day, 
thereby squeezing
nearly a century of history,
from Washington to Lincoln,
into one formal
commemoration.

When I was growing up,
in the 1930s,
the scene was more
generous.

First the birthday
of the Civil War president.

Then the birthday
of the Revolutionary War
hero and first
president of the United
States of America.

And in between--oh joy!
--in between:

Valentine's Day!

Which has been co-opted
from its religious significance
for many generations now--
and here is turned
to commercial profit.

But perhaps also,
somewhere, little children
are enjoying
home-made valentines,
using the time-honored
materials:
paper, scissors, paste,
and crayons--
and their happy
imaginations.

Wonder if cats
like valentines?

Ah--chicken/tuna
flavored valentines!

That might indeed
cheer up an overcast
winter's day.