Mud Season Advice

Keep moving: As long as you keep moving, you’re alive.

Mud season is God’s way of letting New Englanders know they haven’t gotten to heaven yet.

Feign indifference: If the mud senses you’re afraid, you’re doomed.

If you have to travel alone, take along a mature beaver or a large dog that you can send off for help in an emergency.

Don’t take any dirt roads you’ve never been down before … The people who take them are never seen again.

Tie a bright-orange cloth around the top of your car antenna. People can use it to spot you and rescue you in the event you sink completely out of sight.

“Advice from a Mud Season Survivor,” by Kerry

James

WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG

O’Connor, March 1985

—Joan Benoit Samuelson (born May 16, 1957, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine). Samuelson is widely considered the greatest female long-distance runner in American history. A gold-medal winner of the women’s marathon at the 1984 Summer Olympics, she’s also a two-time women’s-division winner of the Boston Marathon. Still running in selected distance events, she continues to show that age is merely a number.

A TALE OF TWO ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADES

compiled

by Julia Shipley

1737 date of world’s first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade, hosted by Boston’s Charitable Irish Society

20.4 percentage of Boston-area population claiming Irish heritage

1,200 pounds of corned beef and cabbage (combined) served at Boston’s Durgin–Park St. Patrick’s Day brunch

FOUR (approximate) miles: length of the parade route through South Boston