To the editor:
It is now officially Spring! Yippee! Here in Shanghai, the official beginning of spring is when you have five days in a row when the average daily temperature is above 10 degrees Celsius. I think that is about 50 degrees. It’s also the time when the sun rises before 6 in the morning. As I sit at the McDonald’s, drinking the bilge water they call coffee, it’s nice to watch the sky lighten up. So we have had a few days of warm sun. The weeping willows, forsythia, flowering cherries are just beginning to leaf and bloom. Its that lovely light green that is a harbinger of warm times to come. Even the fishermen are back along the shores of some of the ponds and streams in the region.
Then I look at home. Thanks to the Web site, crownofmaine.com, I can tune in to the pictures of Caribou and Presque Isle. Talk about lucky me! Snow is nice when the only thing that you want to do is to look at the stuff. I hope to see some cameras go up to SAD 1’s farm before the apple trees bloom and perhaps parking a camera out on Squa Pan lake. I have been having my students check in to the town when they get online. They are fascinated at how few people are there!
I read of how the number of tourists to the U.S. are declining. While I applaud the State pushing to attract new visitors from France I must say that I think that with 50 states seeking the same five Frenchmen the state would be wiser to seek new markets. Thanks to a continuing thaw between our two nations China and the U.S. are looking for new relationships. My students want to experience country life.
Most have never dug a spud or plucked a chicken. Nothing like getting up close and personal with a moose! Voscar can tell a few tales of the friendly, brown, “wee fair beasties” that seem to love the highways and byways of home. My students are amazed that there is so much space.
Their parents have money and its now possible to set up tours. A little bit of work but these are people who are accustomed to dealing and working out solutions. I think of this as I also think of one of the people who wore the title, Mr. County, Mr. Presque Isle, with pride.
Dr. Varnum bid us good bye last week. He championed an area few people know and one that we all guard zealously to organizations around the state and nation. A proud man who loudly proclaimed the beauty of what we call home. And he worked to see to it that we saw clearly those beauties and pleasures that make this place one of those special places set aside to show us the majesty of the Maker: The County. To his friends in sorrow: celebrate his joy. That was his simple gift: the joy of sight.
As I write this, Easter Weekend has begun. I know that one terrific winter storm is politely pounding on the door saying: “Let me in!” And the thought of the tulips, daffodils, and trees are still hunkered down deep. But Spring has a way of showing us all that no matter how bad things are; what turmoil and tragedy do to our lives; and how those, close and far, who we love may suffer; the sun will come out in the morning.
The sky will begin to lighten, and in the blink of the eye the sun is up and rising fast. A couple of weeks and those awesome pictures of 15-foot drifts are gone. Trees are budding and even the moose gets a little bit of love in his eye. It’s something that I try to show my students that there is hope and joy for the future no matter how tough things are at the time. They have one of their tests coming up and like all test-takers they get a little bit nervous. But any test is never the end of the world. Spring tells us that. I know because now the trees in Shanghai are beginning to bud and leaf and the flowers are leaping out of whatever ground they can find. I might even drop my own line in the pond at the school and fish!
Shanghai, China