Thursday, March 01, 2012...We Broke Into March...Was it Lion or Lamb?????

If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb?

The 655 valley road above Belleville before it was opened in 1969
Is there any truth to this saying??? Weather sayings are as colorful as our imagination. While many sayings are based on careful observations and turn out to be accurate, others are merely rhymes or beliefs of the people who came before us.
Those people often believed that bad spirits could affect the weather adversely, so they were cautious as to what they did or did not do in certain situations. Those beliefs often included ideas that there should be a balance in weather and life. So...if a month came in bad (like a lion), it should go out good and calm (like a lamb).
With March being such a changeable month, in which we can see warm spring-like temperatures or late-season snowstorms, you can understand how this saying might hold true in some instances. We can only hope that if March starts off cold and stormy it will end warm and sunny, but the key word is hope. However, this saying seems be to more of a rhyme rather than a true weather predictor.
My grandmother offered this saying every March 1st for as long as I can remember, all the way up to her passing in 1971. In my adult life, I have come to know this saying is an anomaly derived from old folk legend of days gone by. When we were still kids though...we listened intently to all the things our grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents told us. How else would you learn? How else would you have the knowledge to survive? Funny that in our teens, be would believe nothing they told us, for we then knew better.
Reading a friends blog this morning, I was transported back to that time...Back to the days when you couldn’t even rely on a radio broadcast to announce the school closing in time to avert certain shivering as we stood out along the road, awaiting the bus’ arrival. Only when the bus failed to show up after a half hour, would we be permitted to return home to thaw out and start the celebration of a winter snow day off school. We would rally around some source of heat to warm up, change clothes and head out to play all day in the snow with neighbor kids.
We froze our butts off waiting for a bus, but then could play all day in the same conditions...rolling in it, running through it and enjoying every minute. We never had any trouble deciding where to go sledding or where to build a snow man...or a complete family of snow people. We were busy from the time we realized the bus was not coming, until way after dark that evening...and hoped the bus failed to come the next day too. Sometimes in those days, a three foot snowfall would cancel school for several days, although seldom...we always hoped.
Today at 60 (actually 61 in 26 more days)...I look out the window and long for those days, as the arthritis in my fingers ache and my worn out knees crack and pop. The only problem is that even though I long for those days, I would never want to go back, for I would have to live my life all over again. While that sounds good....I would have to also live all the terrible mistakes all over again!
Change all that and don’t make those mistakes all over again...you say? If I changed how I lived my life, it would take a different direction and I would not have all the things near and dear in my life now. I would probably have never met Vick and that would then become the MAJOR mistake of my life.....
Yeah I’m getting old and have aches and pains...BUT...I also have those precious memories of youthful joy with friends and family members, but now I have con-tentment and a love I wouldn’t trade for my youth. NEVER..........


A drifted hollow along route 655above Belleville, Pa - 1969


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