Flinging spring

by Paul Kandarian

Hey, May, whaddya say, please make winter go away!

As I write this in the second week of April, the official start of spring was one month ago and outside it is 27 degrees. Those are winter numbers. Although it’s been a relatively mild winter around these parts with minimal snow, there is often one day of an arctic blast followed by one of equatorial muck and no one bats an eye.

Or as Mark Twain famously said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute,” which was actually a truncated quote, the rest of which was “or my name isn’t Mark Twain… or is it Samuel Clemens? Hey, can someone get this squirrel out of my giant moustache?”

Here’s the thing about New England weather that’s quite simple: it’s cold, cold, cold, hot, cold, cold, cold. Or if the weather in New

England were a clock it would look like this:

Fall is 6 to 12, where average temperatures range from 0-30.

Winter is 12 to 5, where average temperatures range from FYAO (freezing your ass off) to “Kill me now.”

Spring 5 to 5:45, where average temperatures are the same as what you’d get from 6 to 12.

Summer lasts from 5:45 to 6. Average temperatures… ever felt your skin melt?

I think the fickle nature of New England weather is what makes us cranky, and make no mistake about it: we are cranky. I have visited most parts of this country where many people smile, are friendly, say hello, offer to help. We not only don’t do that here, we don’t like it when other people do. We’re already mistrustful. If you lay decent human behavior before us, we get all confused and angry and lash out like a squirrel trapped in that thicket on Twain’s upper lip.

I’m pretty sure we have the Pilgrims to blame for this. Pilgrims were Puritans who came here and, like Columbus, thought they’d found something they could claim as their own even though natives had been living here for who-knowshow-long, so the Pilgrims/ Puritans started a new tradition in the new land: wiping out anyone who got in their sanctimonious way!

The Pilgrims were the first Puritans to sail here from England, a name they equated with religious oppression, so naturally they named their new stolen digs “New England,” because after the long journey they were too tired to be fussy about branding.

It was in December of 1620 that they settled in Plymouth, the legend being they stepped forth on a rock so small and meaningless it would transform the landscape into one of kitschy shops and no place to park in the summer because thousands throng there to be underwhelmed by The Plymouth Pebble.

But it was winter in New England whereupon one Pilgrim/Puritan said to another, “Pray thee, brother, might we set sail for warmer climes in the southern portion of this land God hath provided us?” to which the other responded, “How dare ye speak of such heresy?

God hath led us here, God has spoken, and it is here we will stay!” whereupon the first Pilgrim/Puritan scratched his head and said, “So God likes freezing-yourass-off weather?” and found himself locked in stocks in the public square.

One thing you gotta hand to the Puritans: boy, did they knew how to punish people for… oh, hell, everything!

Sins, sorta sins, are-youkidding-me sins, sins your grandparents may have just thought about, you name it.

Punishments for violating Puritan laws included fines, imprisonment, pillory, stocks, whipping, the ducking stool, public humiliation, hanging, and tar-and-feathering.

And that’s just kid’s stuff, considering the punishment for speaking out against the religion included ears being cut off, burning, and a hot awl plunged through the tongue. At least two adulterers (frankly, I think they were just trying to stay warm) in Massachusetts Bay Colony were executed. Also, public whippings were common and a so-called guilty person was often locked in a stockade where onlookers could spit on and laugh at them, which of course are known today as long lines at the DMV. They also had special punishment for slanderers, nags, and gossips: the Brank, aka the “Gossip’s Bridle” or the “Scold’s Helm,” any of which would make a smashing name for a rock band, but was a sort of heavy iron case that covered the head, and in which a flat tongue of iron (sometimes spiked iron, those kinksters!) would be thrust into the mouth over a criminal’s tongue.

So put all that together with an interminable winter in a new country and you have us: the grouchy descendants of a grouchy people in a new frozen land. Whaddya expect, a smile? We can’t. Our faces are frozen. But hey, if you don’t like New England weather, grow a mustache the size of a pork loin, house a squirrel in it, and make up pithy quotes.