Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Bluster.

March seemed to come in like a lamb yesterday, with moderate winter temperatures and sunshine, but in the evening it stripped off its fake wool and started roaring like a lion. Temperatures dropped to 18 overnight, with winds up to 22 mph. Like I haven't lost enough shingles this winter. You know it's windy and cold when you think you should put up the hood on your coat and find that you've already put up the hood on your coat.

According to the Time and Date site, February is the windiest month of the year in New York. Don't you believe it. The 8 mph shown may be the highest average, but I believe March has our strongest gusts. Heck, when I was a kid in school, March was usually represented on classroom calendars with a wind-blowing cloud. 

Like this jerk.

It was as inevitable as the raindrops falling on an umbrella for April. 

According to The Dictionary of Proverbs, the association of March and Wind in rhyme goes back to at least 1630. The phrase "March winds and April showers / Bring forth May flowers" was first collected in Frederick Thomas Elworthy's The West Somerset Word-Book in 1886. 

And what about Walter G. Samuels, Leonard Whitcup, and Teddy Powell, who wrote the song "March Winds and April Showers," which was a big hit for Ruth Etting

March winds and April showers
Make way for sweet May flowers
And then comes June, a moon, and you
March winds and April showers
Romance will soon be ours
An outdoor paradise for two

Do we want to argue with those guys? Or with Ruth? I didn't think so! 

Time and Date also says that June is our rainiest month, not April. Obviously they didn't grow up with the same classrooms I did.

Another bit of evidence that March is the month in which the wind blows hardest is that it's also Women's History Month. Har har hyuk hyuk... uh oh. 

I hope my wife doesn't read this. Or the late Ruth Etting. I wouldn't want them to think I was some Epipaleolithic cisgender white man, saying that women yell at men. They'd yell at me. 

I'd better just blow on outta here.

5 comments:

  1. One blustery day I was playing golf with some pals, none of us can hear like we used to.

    One of them said "windy, isn't it"?

    So I said, "no, it's Thursday", and my other friend replied, "so am I, let's go get a beer"

    ...

    February won't March, but April May.

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  2. Fred, I'm pleased t'know that March is also Oirish-American Heritage month, which Oi'll celebrate wit gusto. So Oi'll have to choose from becoming a street cop, carrying a hod of bricks everywhere, or going to t'pub. Not really a head-scratcher!

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  3. Begorrah! Oi'm only 25% Oirish and yet Oi would still go out an' get 100% plastered on Patty's Day. An if'n dat Woodstock feller shows up wit' his dad jokes in the pub, crush him wit' der pianer!

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  4. Women get three more days of history than black people. We all know why ;-)

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  5. Black people should get annoyed that they get the shortest and coldest month.

    ReplyDelete