May 5, 2013
That’s me on the first day of Spring, 2013. The big smile was because after six months of winter, the snow had finally decided to recede and the sun had finally decided to shine.
Now we Minnesotans are a hearty lot. Mostly, I think, due to an infusion of Finnish sisu, Norwegian heltemot, and Swedish fasthet from the Scandinavians who collected here two or three generations ago. Not without coincidence, each of those ethnic groups also came from places of gray, cold, perpetual gloom, and frozen water. So they were right at home here, in northeastern Minnesota. But I digress. As I said, we are, even those of us from Slovenian, German, English, Irish, French, Dutch, Scotch, and Welsh ancestry, a non-complaining bunch. But this winter, I think, tested most Minnesotans beyond their native fortitude. Cabin fever? Ha! I don’t know about you, but I came down with a full blown, seasonal affective disorder-based depression.
Rene’, Chris, and Matt Munger 05/04/2013
Griggs Field at Malosky Stadium 5/4/2013
How bad did did it get? Well, Jack, my youngest boy had his first outdoor soccer matches of the season on May 4th, the day before the above picture was snapped. Check out the two pictures from those games. Yes, that’s Griggs Field and Malosky Stadium at UMD. Looks like perfect weather for international football, right? Lord. Think of the poor young boys and girls sliding around in little shorts on snow-covered, still-frozen artificial turf a full month after the official onset of Spring. What gives? Is this a sign, a symptom of global warming? I have no idea. But I do know this: the past winter was a rare bird, harkening back to the days of my youth. True, the big snows I remember filling the streets of Duluth, blanketing Park Point, and clogging downtown with drifts the size of elephants usually came earlier in the season. One memorable March storm hit when I was a student at UMD. My buddy Larry was stuck at his parents’ house in West Duluth and I was stuck with Mom and Dad in Piedmont Heights. Borrowing some of that sisu from my pals Tynjala, Rikala, Sikio, and Peltoma, I bundled up, pulled on my downhill ski boots, threw my Rossignols over my shoulder, and trudged through thigh deep snow to the top of Piedmont Avenue. Cars were buried to their windshields. The neighborhood was as still as a tomb. I stepped into my bindings, slid the straps of my ski poles over my wrists, and proceeded to ski down 24th Avenue West to Grand, doing graceful turns around stalled Fords and Chevys until I hit the flats. Fueled only with the promise of beer, I slid one ski ahead of the other all the way out to 47th Avenue West and spent the next two days in Larry’s basement, drinking Buckhorn and listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
But an entire season of snow in the month of April? Unheard of, even for those of us who have lived all of our lives in this neck of the woods. Fortitude can only last so long, my friends. And with the advent of the snow that fell on May 4th, I was pretty much at the end of my endurance for wintery things. I’d sunk to the lowest of the lows, the bluest of the blues on the heels of the wet flakes that disrupted the Gitchi Gammi Soccer Jamboree. And then, redemption. The sun came out, the snow began to melt, and with the snap of God’s finger, spring arrived.
The last of it.
The photo above does indeed show the last trace of snow along the southern treeline bordering our pasture in Fredenberg Township. The last vestige of the storms that kept me from work, bogged our plow guy down in our driveway, and broke the back of my father’s wooden deck at the old family homestead in Piedmont is now but a hint of April’s plot line. It’s time for the Spring rains to fully and finally scour away recently unveiled dog crap, green things up, and make us forget the April of the forever snows.
Peace.
Mark
PS Stayed tuned for the next blog when I take you fishing in a blizzard!
Sunset on the Cloquet River, May 5, 2013.
