Goodbye, Winter

I've had a snow shovel leaning against the house on the back porch all winter, so that when it snows I don't have to trudge through whatever fell to get to the garage. Over the weekend I looked at it and thought about putting it away, then decided to leave it there a bit longer, because I remember what happened on March 31st, 1997.

On Wednesday we're going to get a couple of inches of snow in greater Boston, which should close the book on this unpleasant winter. There hasn't been a serious storm in over a month; the systems have either been missing us entirely or just brushing us with dustings, but we haven't yet been able to have any sort of sustained mild temperatures.

Nevertheless I put away my lined pants and my insulated waterproof boots. I'm not going to need those things again until next winter. Opening Day at Fenway Park is a week from Friday, so spring must be here, right?