EDITORIAL

Get out, listen to the spring overture

Posted 4/6/22

Depending on how you look at it, I’m fortunate to get my daily papers and Sunday Journal delivered early…very early.

Actually, I can’t think of a reason it’s not great to …

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EDITORIAL

Get out, listen to the spring overture

Posted

Depending on how you look at it, I’m fortunate to get my daily papers and Sunday Journal delivered early…very early.

Actually, I can’t think of a reason it’s not great to get the early delivery and hopefully I’m not jinxing such service by revealing this information. But this should explain why I’m outside before the sun rises and how I know it’s spring. 

Sunday’s pre-dawn walk to the end of the driveway was a radio flashback. Radio flashback? I’ll explain.

Studies have shown how smells and tastes can trigger memories from years ago, making them as vivid as if they just occurred. French author Marcel Proust wrote of it in “Remembrances of Things Past” when the smell of a pastry mentally transported him back to his youth.

I can’t claim similar experiences although visions of the school locker room flash before my eyes when I retrieve my socks from under the bed.  It’s a good reminder to put them in the hamper. 

The walk to the end of the drive can be wet, cold, snowy and windy. Or it can be lit by moonlight or an inky canopy punctuated with stars and the flashing lights of flights bound for Boston. Early morning is usually quiet except for activity at Green Airport, which has increased noticeably. Then every so often there’s the sonorous rumble of a tanker on the bay. The beat of commerce goes on.

Sunday was the exception, no flights and no tankers.

I made my trek closer to 5:30 a.m. as the horizon took on a reddish glow. I was greeted by a chorus proclaiming the day and the arrival of spring. I was transported back to Morning Pro Musica on Boston station WGBH and its host Robert J. Lurtsema. For more than 20 years, Robert J. opened the show of classical music with a recording of birds that from their calls was most likely recorded in New England at springtime. As the birds faded, Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” would gradually take over until in his deep voice Robert J.  said, “good morning.”

Remarkably, I could hear it in my mind although Morning Pro Musica hasn’t aired since the late 90s.

I stood to admire the strident call of a bird I could see silhouetted against a brightening sky in the upper branches of a cherry tree. It looked no bigger than a sparrow, but sparrows, I believe, chirp whereas this bird was making his or her presence known. Between calls came a distance reply audible above the cry of a crow perched at the very tip of a nearby cedar and the increasing avian chatter.

I stood silently not wanting to interrupt the symphony.

 I needn’t have worried. The soloist in the cherry tree took no notice of me. I picked up the paper and headed back to the house to get my phone to record the spring overture.

 I’ll play it if April throws us a trick snow storm and wait to hear the replies from the many friends out there.

Side Up, editorial

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