Hope Springs Eternal

It's a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in early April, the warmth of the sun is taken over by a chilly sea breeze that keeps the temperature in the low 50's. The robins have returned to New England and the yellow, white and purple crocuses are sparsely sprinkled in still chilly and un-groomed  garden beds. The forsythia buds are swollen while they patiently wait for a bright warm day to burst open in all their sunshine-yellowy glory. 

The grass outside my window has yet to turn green but just 16.7 miles south of where I sit, the grass is green and the Sox are Red. 

Spring fever has gripped Red Sox Nation. The Boys of Summer have returned from their winter home. 

I think it's hard for anyone who is not from this 

neck of the woods to truly understand how we bleed Red around here. 

We celebrate silly things like the equipment truck leaving Fenway Park in February. People  line the streets around the park to wave to the driver as he heads for Florida and spring training flanked on each side by Massachusetts State Troopers and Boston Police motorcycles. 

For the past week the New England Sports Network has been replaying memorable games from seasons past, and even though we've seen them, in many cases more than once, we still watch. We are an insane, but passionate bunch.

The passion spans the generations, from the very young to the very old and everyone in between. We're all united in our love for our team and hatred for all things pin-striped.

 Occasionally we have to put up with those sporadic yankee fans who live among us. We do our best to ignore them, but it's not always easy. Case in point, the dad of one of my students who insists on wearing a yankees cap when he comes to pick up his child.

 I try my best to pretend I don't notice, after all, I do have a professional reputation to maintain.

However, I had to smile one day when one of my students, previously known in this blog as "flower child", upon seeing that dad in his yankees cap, broke into song. Loud and Proud!  Her song went a little something like this...

"I spy with my little eye a dad wearing a yankees cap, yankees stink, yankees stink, yankees stink!"

"Now Flower Child", I said, "I have to agree with you about those yankees, but we have to be polite about such things."

"I know Mrs. C, but it's a yankees hat."

There is some logic that you just can't argue with. Such a smart girl, I taught her well.