Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503140026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wednesday morning, around 9 a.m.: I'm out feeding the birds in a balmy bluster of wind. The clouds are heavy scudders this morning, racing around with much fury but little threat.
Last night, I walked in the yard after dark, comfortable in shirtsleeves. The peepers sang down at the spring, and far off somewhere a dog yapped at the new moon.
These warm mornings, it takes the birds a long time to decide to come. I hear the cardinals out there chattering, but they seem content to gossip. Plenty of time to eat later.
Wednesday afternoon, 2 p.m.: The wind is blowing hard from the northwest now, carrying with it a cold, heavy rain that's starting to freeze. In the past hour, the temperature has dropped 20 degrees and, all around, school systems are closing up early.
The goldfinches have finally discovered the special mix I put out earlier in the window trays. They're making a happy, if slightly frantic, racket.
But they look like ragamuffins. Some have started switching from their winter olive-drab to summer gold, so now they wear an oddly indecisive scruffiness. Those that aren't changing outfits are raggedly wet.
A few other birds are out at the feeder in the rain, too, getting what they can before it freezes over. The rest, apparently, have taken heed of this weather, given up, and gone. Somewhere. Back in the bushes, where it might still be dry.
If the rain keeps up like this - driving hard, with wind - our roof will leak. The poet T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. He didn't live in Virginia.
Wednesday, late afternoon, 5 p.m.: Is it sleet or freezing rain? I could call up Robin Reed at Channel 7 and ask, but I'll bet he's busy.
And now it's snowing, too. The goldfinches have disappeared, but the chickadees and sparrows are frantic out there, no time to waste now, picking their way around the big feeder and over the ground. A minute ago, a couple of streaked sparrows even took up arms - took up wings? - against each other.
I hate March.
I've been trying to keep it at bay by washing and ironing shirts. It's a task I've always enjoyed: filling the house with the smell of Oxydol and hot water, steaming up the kitchen windows with escaped air from the dryer.
I remember long chats with my mother while she ironed. We watched ``The Loretta Young Show'' together and talked about worldly things (or so they seemed to me), while her iron thumped against the board.
She kept a sprinkler top in a Coke bottle filled with water, and used that contraption to dampen the newly washed clothes. Then she twisted each garment into a knot and stuck it in the refrigerator. Shirts and little dresses snapped sharply when she shook them out later, hissed and steamed with the smell of hot cotton and starch under her iron.
All the while Loretta Young was living different lives on TV. One afternoon, she was composer Clara Schumann. ``You know,'' Mama said, ``she was your cousin.''
``Loretta Young?'' I asked incredulously.
``Clara Schumann.''
What a miracle! Something to think about now, in my own steamy kitchen, as March sleet pecks on the windows and wind rattles the door.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB