Barometer
April May or May Not
Timportance
When I was a child, we kids bounced around in wood-panelled station wagons like red-blue-and-white striped rubber balls. A mother’s right foot, when driving, was attached to her right arm, so that the foot braking action was connected to the right-arm-stretching-out-function in order to prevent any small front-seated child from bashing her head into the dash-board (the bash-board).
Perfectly reasonable-seeming parents might threaten to halt all progress to immediately hand out corporal punishment: “Don’t make me stop the car!” Then they may or may not lash out with a long arm all the way to the back of the station wagon with a quick sharp slap, expertly applied, while travelling along at many miles per hour.
This is when we drove about, happily burning many gallons of gas, and were pleased to have the paved highways to do so. We would take A Family Drive as soon as almost all of the snow had melted in the spring, just for the sheer joy of it.
Now here’s my kid, all clicked and strapped into a high-tech back-seat child carrier which has been safety-tested and approved, if not later re-tested and recalled. It’s more difficult to hear the conversation from the front, what with the radio and the circulating air that has first been warmed or cooled. April might be cool or it may be warm.
So when his parents are discussing whether to stop at a drive-thru, it can be difficult to hear from the sanctuary of the rear seat. A possible coffee at Tim Horton’s becomes Timbits , which are of the utmost importance to a small strapped child, who shouts out his vote: “Timportance!”
Apples
Jonagold apples, sticker #4145, are currently available in stores, even in early spring.
Jonagold is a cross between Golden Delicious and Jonathan. Jonagold is triploid, and as such not only requires a second type of apple for pollination, but is also incapable of providing pollen for other trees. The Jonagold Apple is covered under United States Patent PP05937.
You can buy them one at a time if you like, or in a big bag, right now.
When I was a girl there were only apples, and on the box they were labelled BC MacIntosh. You bought them by the wooden crate in the fall from the Scouts or the Kinsmen. They were small, red and sweet. When they became a bit too old, they were kinda mealy, but still good.
That was an apple.
If you wanted an apple you’d go look in the garage, where it was cool. In the box by the door.
In my Manitoba childhood, fresh fruit was what Grandma planted in her garden or what you picked in the wild: melons and berries. “Muss melon” is what we called cantaloupe, and like us dusty, sweaty children, they liked a hot summer. Berries were raspberries and strawberries from the garden, and saskatoons from the bush.
If you asked a child to pick these, you may get some in the pail like this: two in the mouth, one in the pail, three in the mouth, one in the pail. Grandmas were aware of this and allowed this mouth-staining activity to go on in the hope that at least one pailful would arrive for canning or for pie.
Children at that time did not know such things were called “produce” and were good for us. Things that were good for us were liverish—served with onions—or in a bottle, like dark fish oil. Neither did we know that fresh peas in the pod were “healthy;” we just picked and ate as many of the sweet, crispy things as we could get away with.
Daylight Saving
“Spring forward” was in April, not March, and meant more time in which to enjoy the still-cool spring evenings. While potentially reducing electric bills, it had nothing to do with Global Warming because that hadn’t been invented yet.
School and office equipment was not concerned with saving daylight in any way, as we had no computers to get their time and date messed up. We had carbon copies, not carbon offsets.
April has changed, and it may or may not be for the better.
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