Monday, March 14, 2022 March Musings

Today would have been my dad’s 95th birthday. In honor of his birthday, I’ll share one of his favorite jokes: The pastor of a church one Sunday saw three other pastors from his denomination come into the back of the church after the service had started, visiting for some local convention. The church was already full and there were no places for them to sit, so he signaled one of the deacons to come over and whispered to him, “Three chairs for the ministers.” The deacon asked him to repeat it to make sure he’d understood correctly. “Okay,” he whispered back. Then the deacon stood up in front of the congregation and called out, “Three cheers for the ministers! Hip, hip – Hooray! Hip , hip – hooray! Hip, hip – hooray!” I’d love to hear him tell one of his corny jokes again. My mom has soldiered on without him now for 9 years. They little knew everything in store for them when they said their “I do’s,” but they went through it all together, loyal and faithful to the end.

The geese have been coming through our town. We saw crowds of them honking their way overhead a couple days ago. My husband checked a reference for our area and sure enough, the geese are known to come back north around mid-March. If you listen closely to their honking, you’ll realize that they’re actually blowing on party favors as a festive way to signal the return of spring. Here’s a quieter sign of spring right in our back yard:

We suspect this lovely little green shoot might be an onion sprout, a volunteer from last year’s failed crop. Hope springs anew.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless there’s a “here comes spring” party going on overhead.