≠≠≠≠--≠--x=-xxIn like a lamb out like a lion: that’s the long-standing formula for the “transitional” month of March.
This year the month entered like a lamb with the overnight temperature from February 29 to March 1 staying above freezing. At this point in time, the old worn-out theory is half true. Easter falls on Sunday, March 31: it would make a real mess of things if that day, of all days, brought storms. (I can remember eating one or two Easter Sunday evening meals early to be sure we got home before a forecasted blizzard.)
(Yes, it did hit, but not as bad as the forecast.)
How ready are you for Daylight Savings on Sunday, March 10? As of last year, Genie and I have only goofed once in setting the clock. We arrived at church on time only to find out we were an hour late!!
Lena baked a great birthday cake for Ole on his twenty-first birthday with 84 candles. How could Lena be mathematically correct?
Make a fellow veteran happy on his birthday. Send him a birthday card for his birthday of 102 great years on March 12, 2024. The Minnesota American Legion is also requesting you do this. Send birthday card to:
Lupe Gasca
1009 Fairlane Terrace
Albert Lea, MN 56007-3557
Maybe I can help you remember some of your winter memories by telling some of mine.
A. Being towed behind a pickup truck while the truck was on the road and I was on cross country skis in the ditch.
B. Being towed behind a pickup truck while the truck was in an alfalfa field and I was on a toboggan.
C. Being towed behind a pickup truck while the truck was on St. Olaf Lake and I was on ice skates.
D. Cross country skiing both uphill and downhill for miles.
E. Crappie fishing after dark using candles to see while in a very rustic fish house on St. Olaf Lake.
F. Ice fishing on St. Olaf Lake when a muskrat swam up through the hole I was fishing in.
G. There was so much snow, I dug a tunnel through a snowbank to get into the front door of our house. I have a picture of Genie and me as we bent over to get through the snowbank and into our house.
H. An old car attached to a log chain on the ice at Beaver Lake. You bought a chance to guess when the car would break through the melting ice and sink. The prize was between $300 and $500. I bought chances but never won!!
I. Mile after mile of telephone poles either broken or bent over after a winter snow-ice storm.
J. The snow-ice storm that shut Albert Lea down for days. Causes for the shut-down were that the electricity was out; use of generators was limited because only one gas station was open, and would sell no more than 5 gallons per sale.
K. Genie's best winter story: As a student nurse at Naeve Hospital in Albert Lea on Easter Sunday morning, all the students were awakened to staff the hospital that day and night as a blizzard shut down all traffic.
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Bob is a retired AAL (Aid Association for Lutherans) agent, currently working on his master’s degree in Volunteering. His wife, Genie, is a retired RN, currently working on her doctor’s degree in Volunteering. They have two children, Deb in North Carolina, and Dan in New York. Bob says if you enjoy his column, let him know. If you don’t enjoy it, keep on reading, it can get worse. Words of wisdom: There is always room for God.