“Why, My Child, is February so short?”

“Daddy Dear, I know the answer true. We learned the poem in school, from Mother Goose.

“Thirty days have November,

“April, June and September.

“All the rest have 31,

“Except February alone,

“And that has 28 days clear,

“And 29 in a leap year.”

“But, Daughter Dearest, why only 28? What is the reason for that?”

“Alas, My Father, I know not the answer to your question.”

Romulus, Numa Pompilius and Caesar did.

On March 27/28, 771 BC, in what is modern-day Italy, the twins Romulus and Remus were born of Martian or Herculean descent. Their Olympian origins were discovered by the bad King Amulius who had the twins thrown into the Tiber River to drown. The River Tiber did not agree with Amulius’ pronouncement and carried the babies to the protection of a mother wolf and a woodpecker who fed the boys and a shepherd and his wife who raised the twins to manhood. Grown, the twins returned, deposed Amulius and decided to found a new city. On April 21, 753 BC, Romulus founded that city on the Palatine Hill, named it Rome after himself and became its first king.

Legend has it that King Romulus wanted a calendar to record his exploits, like founding a city and starting an empire. So, he developed the first lunar, based-on-the-moon, calendar. That first lunar calendar started in March and ended in December. The ancient Romans considered the winter time between December and March to be a monthless period, because from an agricultural perspective (and they were an agrarian culture before their legions starting conquering the world), nothing much was happening during those chilly winter days, except waiting for warmer weather.

Wait. There was this very old festival of Februarlia which occurred around the full moon before the month of March. It was the rainy season in Rome, and a good time to dust, clean and attend to the washing that had built up over the winter. I guess you could call it the festival of spring cleaning. In any event, the domus smelled better afterwards.

In 715 BC, Numa Pompilius succeeded Romulus and became the second King of Rome. Numa was a thinker. Rome was growing, and there was more to keep track of, even during the chilly days of monthless winter. Numa Pompilius thought, and he thought, and finally he said, “We need more months.” A royal Roman committee was formed, and two new months were chosen: the first Ianuarius (January) and the second Februarius (February), named after all that nice smelling fresh linen.

The committee members put all the days left in the year in a pot, and it was about 57 – 29 for one and 28 for the other. “Who gets more?” they said to each other. They gave Numa a Romulus coin and said, “You flip.” He did, Numa Pompilius flipped the coin, and January got 29 — at that time. February got the 28, an uneven number. Uneven numbers were considered unlucky by the Romans, but that’s the way the denarius (coin) bounces and the itrion (honey cookie) crumbles – as they say in Rome.

Year later, in 46 BC, Julius Caesar had finished his conquests of Gaul and Britain and was settling into the Forum, when he noticed that old Lunar calendar of Romulus and Numa Pompilius wasn’t working so well. Caesar liked things to run smoothly. Every leap year, February was even shorter (23 or 24 days, “Ugh”) and you had to add a whole leap month of Intercalarius (“Huh”) after February to line things back up. “Very untidy,” the Conqueror of the world thought. “Something must be done about this. Those Egyptians I subjugated had a solar calendar that seemed much neater. Why not try that?”

He did. Caesar did it.

In 45 BC, the new Julian Sun Calendar took effect. Copies were handed out by insurance agents throughout the Empire. No messy leap months squeezing February and confusing the royal tax collectors. The months were evened and balanced quite nicely.

“Thirty days have November,

“April, June and September.

“All the rest have 31,

“Except February alone,

“And that has 28 days clear,

“And 29 in a leap year.”

“A nice touch,” the Imperial Caesar adjusted his laurel crown. “I like leaving February at 28, and only one leap day every four years. Quite manageable. Maybe February’s not that unlucky after all. You know, I always thought March had an unlucky feel to it, especially the Ides. The Ides of March gives me the shivers. Don’t know why? I’ll have to ask Brutus about that.”

And now you know the rest of the story.

Enjoy the rest of your February.

Don’t worry about March.

The Ides will arrive.

Soon enough.

Grandpa Jim

In Chaucer’s day in England was spring later than in today’s day in Texas?

From Dallas to the North Pole is 3,961 miles (6,375 kilometers). The distance from London to the North Pole is 2,668 miles (4,294 kilometers). In its day, London is closer, by some 1,293 miles (2,081 kilometers), to the North Pole. For this reason, England would be expected to linger somewhat in its cooler days.

Geoffrey Chaucer is widely regarded as the Father of English literature. Geoffrey was born in 1343 in London, England. He died in that city on October 25^th, 1400. We suspect London was both farther north and colder than Dallas in Chaucer’s London when the bard penned, around the year 1382 AD, the opening lines of “The Canterbury Tales.”

“Whan that April, with his shoures soote

“The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

“And bathed every veyne in swich licour

“Of which vertu engendred is the flour.”

Do you see the scene in the poet’s paint? It’s April in England with the showers falling to pierce the drought of March and generate in sweet rain the flowers of spring. The flowers are blooming in April in London.

Now, take a look at these pink petals primly pointing the path in Dallas this February, 2014.

Can this be the sole effect of geographic distance from the pole or are we witness to a globe warmed from the distant days of Middle Age in Europe to modern age in Texas?

At home here, the red-honeyed colors harbor a harbinger of hot days and warm nights belying the later words of our scrivener of yore.

A stand of bushy white honey suckle silently secure the gauge of the rail’s past right-of-way turned to trail the words of the young laureate Frost’s 1915 “A Prayer in Spring.”

“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

“And give us not to think so far away

“As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

“All simply in the springing of the year.”

And, there, if we spy near, we, like the rhyming Robert, can ply among the white of flowers the buzz and fly of a brown bee busy in its work.

“Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

“Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

“And make us happy in the happy bees,

“The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.”

Still, even today in the earlier Texas spring, there is a way to travel before the Indian Hawthorne’s leaves of winter green are hidden behind the velvet shades of western sunset.

And, our summer-waiting crepes tower, shadowed sentinels, no horns of petalled plenty there, not yet, not until the hot heat of bright sun’s earlier season crowds our spring to soften their silent stance.

While the first soiled pink tennis ball of summer soon bounces past, freed from its den to roll and stop in the early light of an even earlier game.

Beneath all this talk of poets and climate change, the prettiest petal is sometimes the least seen and most hidden.

In late sun hour, the vernal lane lengthens to a hot soft, “Good evening.”

A fleeting damsel of day in her hurried steps dropping a solitary bloom, the last lace to grace a block of ancient limestone, its solid veins unconcerned with a passing change in climate — whether Dallas or London, England or Texas, 2014 or 1382.

To some there is beauty in the same no matter its change.

Grandpa Jim

It’s fun and sports in wintery Sochi, Russia, even though it’s really not the 22^nd Winter Olympics.

Or, is it?

Intrigue has long lurked in the shadows of the Olympics, and winter competitions are no exception to the mysterious backdrop of international Olympic sports.

In 1921, the Congress of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sat, rubbing their hands and thinking. “Why not?” the delegates said to each other, heads back and eyes wandering the darkened ceiling. “Why not have France, the host nation of the upcoming 1924 Summer Olympics, hold an International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix, France? The IOC would, of course, be a patron of the colder-weather event, but we just won’t call it an Olympics.”

At this point in time, the Summer Olympics were well established, but no official wintery-white and open-air blustery Olympic schedule of games had been initiated. The first international Summer Olympics of the modern era were held in 1896 in Athens, Greece, under the epic story-book shadow of Mount Olympus and the gods of ancient mythology. That first Summer Olympics was a great success, with the most athletes and the biggest crowd of any sporting event to date. And, it was there that the IOC was first constituted as the think-tank of big-league Olympic intrigue – sorry, I mean – sports.

“Yes, that does sound like a good idea,” the IOC planners whispered among themselves. “Let’s have this International Sports Week in Chamonix. You never know, it might be a success.”

It was a great success.

For 11 days, 250 athletes from 16 countries competed in 16 events and had a rousingly invigorating time in a winter wonderland of amazed fans. The competitors from Finland and Norway won more medals than all the other countries combined. Those ruddy Finish and Norwegian athletes stood in their stocking caps and ski jackets on their winner’s blocks and shouted: “YES to Winter! And, YES to the Winter Games!” How could they say anything else? A sportingly-fine winter is something of a tradition back home.

Back in their darkened planning room, the IOC planners squinted and ruminated. “Yes,” they said, excitement creeping into the room and lifting the shades. “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

The next year, 1925, the IOC announced with grand fanfare and much acclaim the creation of an official and separate Winter Olympic Games. “Hooray,” Norway and Finland shouted. “Bring on the medals.” (You may note that in the standings in Sochi today, Norway is leading with 10 gold medals!)

But, that was not the end of things.

The shrewd back-room planners in their elegant Pink-Panther suits thought more and hard, did a quick ju-jitsu and jumped on the table with a slam-bang toboggan of a grand idea: “Let’s retroactively rename the 1924 Games in Chamonix the first Winter Olympics. It’s always good to build on success. And, who doesn’t love the Olympics?”

It is hard to argue with success and with the shrewd machinations of seasoned media manipulators.

The rest has been downhill ever since: Go Olympics! Go Winter! Go Winter Olympics!

I love and enjoy every event, and, you know, I kinda’ enjoy the intrigue too.

Even though, to be precise, this really is the 21^st Winter Olympics.

Don’t tell anyone – just have a wonderful time of it.

Sit back in your seats and watch the intrigue – sorry, I mean – the sporting events.

As the Pink Panther would say: “What’s life without a surprise or two, or even twenty-two?”

Smile — it’s winter outside in Sochi and much fun still to happen.

Grandpa Jim

I stopped for coffee.

Some say I need the caffeine to start.

After my walk, I turned my steps toward the local coffee shop. (The name is withheld so I cannot be accused of promoting a particular merchant, but for the curious of mind, the sobriquet on the sign is the combination of a fixed luminous point in the sky and male deers tilting antlers in the woods.) I walked into the shop of celestial stags and ordered one of my favorite caffeinated beverages: “Full strength, please. No decaf today.”

In a normal – if somewhat shaky – year, the average USA American consumes 1,204.5 eight-ounce cups of coffee. If this average “Joe” or “Jane” were to purchase those small cups of java at the home shop of the cosmic ungulates, the cost to our wired consumers would be $1,987 each. Wow! You can see why coffee purveyors are pouring out onto every corner.

Even then, the US is not at the top of the coffee-bean list. The folks up Finland way consume more coffee per year than any other country. Sweden is second. Those two northern neighbors are in a warm race in their cool climes for the #1 spot at the hot espresso bar. After the lands of the midnight sun, France, Germany, Italy and Canada harbor the most coffee drinkers. USA sippers find themselves in the second tier. From the number of new sun-object ruminants locations being constructed in US strip malls and town centers, the Scandinavians should quickly lift another cup of that dark and lovely beverage if they are to maintain the place of merit as the possessors of most increased metabolic rates on the planet.

Yes, the caffeine in coffee increases the subject’s metabolic rate, as well as lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The other positive effects are increased attention, alertness and decreased fatigue – which is why I stopped for my boost under the sign of the aquatic female.

The past week has been quite the time and good reason for an energizing beverage.

On Valentine’s Day, last Friday, our newest grandchild, a beautiful baby girl, was born! Fanfare, Clapping, Loud Shouting. Before the joyous birth, we had the other grandkids in groups for about a week. I compare this to juggling kittens on a moving train while trying to do the laundry, because you really can’t think of anything else and you really don’t know what you’re doing – or, at least, I didn’t, and that’s for sure. But, eventually, the train stopped, the kittens jumped over us and the piles of soiled clothes, and ran to the hospital to be with the new baby and the happy parents — while we sighed and slumped in amazement and awe: “She’s so pretty, don’t you think?” “I do.”

And, and you can cap that with her little stocking cap, we have been doing all the things you do to move into a new home. A place we have had our eyes on for some time came free at the same time the new baby opened her eyes with a cry for attention. Paperwork and grandkiddenwurk have made for tiring and very fun times.

Which is why I was worn and in search of a stimulating beverage as I pulled the money from my running shorts and plopped the coins down on the counter.

“Coffee, please!”

Coffee is the most sought-after source of caffeine in the USA. In my country, coffee is the most consumed beverage, after water — of course. For the average American, 67.2 milligrams of the person’s daily consumption of 131.9 milligrams of caffeine come from coffee – that’s 51% of the daily dose from the hot filtered water of the dried beans of the coffee bush. The other sources of caffeine are about evenly split between tea, carbonated beverages and other beverages. From the numbers, It’s almost all fluidized drinks that harbor the stimulating caffeine-compound. Food only accounts for 2.3 milligrams a day, about 2% of the caffeine entering the human bloodstream in a single day.

“Food! Who eats caffeine? Another cup of ‘Joe,’ if you please.”

Oh, by the way, “caffeine” is a French word for made-from-the-coffee-bean. And, French chemists claim to have first isolated the jittery chemical 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, which to the rest of us, who aren’t chemists, means CAFFEINE! Thank you, France. But, don’t try to order a pour of 1,3,7-trimethyxanthine, unless you want a blank smile in return and nothing in your cup.

Stick with coffee. It’ simpler and so to the point.

So, I said to myself, as I sipped my coffee, “It has been a good week: My favorite hot beverage, a happy smiling baby and a new place to prop my feet as I sit back and thank Ms. Bright-In-The-Night-Sky A-Few-Dollars-More for a quiet and refreshing break.”

Stop by and say hello.

It is a pleasant place to prognosticate with friends.

I know you won’t get lost, because I know you know the name of the shop.

Grandpa Jim

“’From Your Valentine.’ Oh, Daddy, do you see how he signed the note?”

“Yes, my Daughter,” the Jailer answered. “You see because the one they call Valentine healed your blindness. Now, he has paid for his crimes.”

“What crimes, Father Jailer?”

“Blind-now-seeing Daughter, the young priest, Valentine, did not follow Emperor Claudius’ decree: No couples shall be married, and all young men shall join the armies of the Empire to fight in the campaigns. Always before, young men when wed were exempt from service. Not so now.”

“What did my Valentine, Father?”

“He married the young lovers, my child. For that, he has paid with his head.”

“Oh Father, how could they? He was a good man.”

“I think more, Daughter. I think a saint, Saint Valentine.”

And, so it was, in the year 280 AD on February 14^th, for his crime of uniting young lovers, Valentine was executed by the Roman Emperor, Claudius. Before the execution, the quiet priest healed the jailer’s daughter of her blindness and revealed to the world his sainthood. He also left behind the memorable note signed “From Your Valentine” sealing the kind cleric’s claim to the hallmark of Valentine cards.

The 14^th of February had long been associated with love, and it is curious that the Emperor would choose that day to seal the fate of the first Valentine.

On February 14, the Romans celebrated a feast that was ancient when Rome was founded. Called Lubercalia, it was a grand spring festival to celebrate the warmer weather, the planting of the new crops and the anticipation of new unions. A great jar was placed in the middle of the festival grounds, and into that jar were placed the names of the eligible young maidens. Each young man would draw a name from the jar, and the two so partnered would spend the festival together and perhaps form a more permanent bond should the flower of love blossom and bloom. The 14^th day of February was a time for shy smiles, the exchange of names and salutations, and a quiet evening walk in the Forum touching hands.

Even before the energies of man, the birds knew the day. For any who walk the woodland trails following the advent of spring, the young birds in pairs swoop and soar and chase one after the other stopping for twigs and soft grasses for a hidden nest in the far trees and a new family of tiny chirps and hungry mouths. In the Europe of the Middle Ages, it was held and believed that February 14^th was the day the birds began to fly and find their partners, a time of love in the woods and in the skies.

In 1381 AD, that chaser of tales, the good Geoffrey Chaucer, did pen “The Parliament of Fowls,” in which the bard’s clear words unite the quick flight of our fair feathered friends in time of fresh flowers to the sad plight of the dear saint who gave his life to bind young lovers in vernal equinox:

“For this was St. Valentine’s Day

“When every bird of every kind

“Comes to this place to choose his mate.”

The world, in its many ways and times, is a strange and amazing place to bring a saint to follow a festival to spy in flight the avian rite of spring on that same day of their own choosing.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day to you and yours.

Find a tree-lined path to walk, friends with hands held close.

Smile and lift your heads to catch the antics of young cardinals paired.

Search a spring festival, wish each other best and exchange to each fair accord.

For two may not know now where such will lead, but know you now a Valentine is waiting there for you to see.

Grandpa Jim

They were bigger than the Monkees would ever be.

They were bigger than anything or anyone.

They were and are the Beatles.

Behind the couch in the living room, I wasn’t looking for bugs. I was listening to Beatles. It was 1964 and it was “Meet the Beatles!” time. Leaning against the back of the sofa and warmed by the bright sun shining through the cold glassed sliding door that separated me and the music from the frigid outside of Iowa winter, USA, I was in a happy daydreamland of Beatles lyrical fun.

Mom wandered through and peered over at me on the floor. “I like them,” she said. “I like the sound.” That was it. I mean that cemented the whole thing. They were in. Moms do not like teenager music. She did and that meant it was more than just kid music.

It was, it was in time and it was needed.

Just two months before, on Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. To this day, I can go back in my mind and sit on that hard folding chair in our high school auditorium, stare up at the wall clock above the basketball goal and hear the Principal say the words: “The President is dead.” We were young. We liked Jack Kennedy because he was young and full of energy with his young family and smiles and vacations at the beach. We weren’t politicians. We just liked him, and we were sad. We were all sad.

Then these kids from Liverpool showed up.

And, the girls started to scream and shout.

I mean you could hear the noise in Iowa.

It was “The Ed Sullivan Show.” We watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” every Sunday night. It was what families did together – back then. Our TV screen was black and white and grainy. Ed Sullivan was this ancient character who couldn’t really talk and murmured things like, “Now, on with the show,” but it didn’t sound like “show,” it sounded like “shoe” or “shuuu” or something, and you couldn’t get it out of your head, because the sound was so odd, but you looked forward to hearing it anyway. The show itself was great, with acts from everywhere: jugglers, magicians, pianists, gymnasts and bands. Not just old bands and show bands, but new rock-and-roll bands — which was pretty neat for an old-guy with a speech problem.

Sunday night, February 9, 1964, the new band was the Beatles. I can’t remember the words of their songs, but I can go back in my mind and feel that soft couch, peer at the black-and-white TV screen in the corner of our darkened living room and hear the Beatles. I can hear them standing there in their stiff suits, straight manner and long hair. After the music ends, old Ed walks onto the stage and puts his arms around the smiling lads from Liverpool, thanks them “For a greet shuuu” and waves woodenly to us out in TV land. And, I can remember my Mom smiling back.

Vietnam was starting up.

We needed to smile and laugh and see a crazy bright side to things.

The Beatles did just that with album after album and single after single that soared to the top of the charts and lifted our spirits and warmed our hearts in the escalating cold war that followed the death of our President and claimed so many and so much of ourselves.

It is a strange thing to say, but they never let us down and they left much that we are better for.

The four were just a small group, but their presence and their sounds were larger than life.

Sometimes a simple word is best: The Beatles were fun when fun was needed.

Through the good and hard times, you were fun when fun was needed.

For that, I can say from the bottom of my heart: “Thank you.”

You and your music reached out and held our hands.

Thank you, for showing us a better world.

Through the songs and the tears.

Grandpa Jim

Yesterday was a cold day on the Katy Trail. Temperatures stayed below freezing, starting in the teens and hovering in the 20’s, an unusual entrant to February for Texas. And, to top it off, we had snow. Here you see a lonely runner crunching forward in slow approach:

Slogging onward and away up that way, the solitary figure drifts from view, trudging ever into the numb of north.

From his guarded alcove, the edge of cold is sharp enough to harken St. Francis with an offering of seeds and comforts to grounded aviaries and other friends.

School continued despite the inclement weather, although pick-up was something of an ice rink from slick intersection to snow-packed cross-street. My nine-year-old granddaughter was disappointed the teachers hadn’t cancelled classes to allow the building of snow people and the throwing of snow sphericals. There was an incredulity in her innocent comments which invited agreement, especially when she noted wisely: “We really haven’t had snow all winter, only cold. Don’t they understand?”

The honesty of her reverie stopped me to wonder on the ancient conundrum of species homo sapien: “Why can’t we just do what we want to do?” In simple form, I guess that is the succinct restatement of the common situation of all of life: Why school? Why a job? Why this job? Why only this much money? Why rules? Why schedules? Why not a red sports car? Why not a bigger house? Why not a snow day? Why? Why? Why?

The three grandchildren stayed for the night, sleeping and talking past lights out. I could hear their animated voices from their bedroom hideaway. In the morning, the youngest, my three-year-old grandson, over a bowl of colorful cereal, spilled the proverbial milk: “Grandpa, we prayed to God-on-the-wall that there wouldn’t be school today.”

Of course you did. When in need, take your cause to a higher authority. Even at three, just recourse is recognized.

“It didn’t work Grandpa,” the young lad observed with a dribble of milk down the chin and onto the shirt, which I dabbed with a towel and thought in my mind: “Or, did it?”

My mind wandered down the trail as I remembered the common words of many a Sunday sermon, the preacher pounding the podium: “There are no unanswered prayers. There are two answers: Your answer and God’s answer. Your prayer was answered. Now, what are you doing about it?”

What indeed?

But, perhaps my adult wander into wistful reflection was an unneeded detour for the grandson and his two older sisters. The threesome was already packing up with smiles and laughter — which I thought was the best answer I had ever seen or heard to the preacher’s question.

The answer from the heart of children is: “If you can’t do what you wanna’ do, enjoy what you gotta’ do.”

I love kids.

They understood that naturally.

God’s “No” answer did not slow them down one bit.

They were up and ready to go — even though it was not what they woke up wanting to happen.

About two hours later, I entered the school auditorium for my nine-year-old granddaughter’s Biography Day presentation. The young girl was costumed in a blue house dress with white polka dots, a white apron with a red heart on the pocket with the words “I Love Desi,” and a bright red wig. At the end of the short speech, which was clearly and certainly delivered with a naïve smile (reminding me so much of her character), my granddaugher announced with a coy turn of the head, “I am Lucille Ball.”

And, she was.

They both were. Bravo and applause.

“Do what you enjoy and enjoy what you’re doing.”

If there was anyone who lived that, it was in her life and character “I Love Lucy.”

She is and was a sweet girl who got up with a smile and somehow muddled through the day with a happy laugh at “The End.”

I love Lucy. She did a great job. They both did. And, by their actions, those two sweethearts answered one of the most vexing questions in all of human history: “Now, what are you going to do about it?”

A wink, a smile, a red wig, and the heart of child.

It is a good day, whatever we’re doing.

Don’t you think?

I do.

Grandpa Jim

“What’s your name?’

“Punxsutawney Phil.”

“Where did you get a name like that?

“It’s from where I’m forced to live in Pennsylvania.”

“Why’d they name you after a town?”

“Guess it was better than Candlemas Phil.”

“‘Candlemas’?”

“Candlemas is February 2^nd. That’s the day I usually check outside the burrow to see what the weather is like. Candlemas is the day the baby Jesus was presented in the temple. That’s that day I present myself to the world after a long winter’s sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“I’m a groundhog. When the weather cools in fall, I hibernate for the winter to stay warm. You know, a nice den under the ground with warm leaves and twigs and bits of grass. Quite comfortable.”

“Why ‘ground-hog’? I get the ‘ground’ piece, but why ‘hog’? You don’t look like a piggie.”

“I’m not. No porcine in my family tree. I’m actually a ground squirrel, but, well, I like to eat, carry a few extra pounds, you know, to last the winter. I guess I am a little chubby.”

“So, you got stuck with ‘groundhog’ because of your waistline?”

“That’s part of it.”

“There’s more?”

“When I’d present myself on Candlemas Day to decide if it’s warm enough for an early exit and romp in the yard, the kids would scream to their parents: “Groundhog! Groundhog! It’s Groundhog’s Day, Mummy? Is the weather warm enough to play outside, Daddy? Please! Please!” That’s how the whole Groundhog’s Day started.”

“You mean you became a celebrity?”

“Yep, a captive celebrity. I was declared a prognosticator of the advent of spring, a predictor of warmer times. For that talent, I was netted, imprisoned and incarcerated in a fake den in Pennsylvania to spend the cold days in dark isolation, pulled out on February 2^nd and forced to look for my shadow.”

“Why your shadow?”

“No idea. My captives made it up. No shadow, spring will come early. Shadow, six more week of winter. Complete nonsense. I know if it’s warm enough outside by the temperature. Who do they think I am?”

“Why the ‘Phil’ part of your name?”

“No idea on that either. I was trying to get it legally changed and then that Bill Murray guy happened.”

“The actor?”

“Yeah. He played Phil Connors in that movie ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ I think it was 1993. The winters run together. Anyway, this Phil Connors meteorologist jerk predicts the weather wrong and gets presented with an endless series of wake-ups in Punxsutawney on the same Groundhog’s Day until he starts treating people, the weather and me right. Talk about a lesson. Phil got it right and got treated better. Why don’t they treat me better? It’s not right the way they treat me. Plus, after that movie, I’m stuck with the ‘Phil’ name forever. Everyone loved Phil by the end of the show? It’s just not fair.”

“So what did you predict this year?”

“Oh yeah, I’ll tell you the ‘Secret.’ My captors don’t even look at my shadow. They make me whisper in the Chief Warden’s ear whether there will be an early spring. If I don’t do it, they’ll turn on the movie with Bill Phil Murray for 24 hours a day every day in my burrow. I mean that movie will drive you nuts.”

“So, early spring or not this year?”

“’Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today.’ I couldn’t resist a quote from the movie. And, here’s my favorite for old Bill Phil himself, a prediction for the rest of his life, I wish: ‘You want a prediction about the weather, you’re asking the wrong Phil. I’ll give you a winter prediction: It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.’ There, take that, old Bill Phil Murray, you. And next time, let me jump out of the pickup before you drive it and you over the cliff.”

“You seem upset. Maybe you should take a nice quiet rest for another six weeks or so.”

“You’re probably right. I do feel a bit tired.”

“See you in the spring.”

“Say, what’s your name?”

“Rabbit, Peter Rabbit.”

“That the Easter thing?”

“Right.”

“What day is that?”

“That’s a long story. Maybe we can talk after you wake up.”

See you in the spring, I hope.

Grandpa Jim

A sea urchin is not a youngish pirate or a youthful seafaring Samurai.

A sea urchin is a small round spiny hedgehog-looking shelled animal inhabiting the tidal environs of oceans around the world. Sand dollars found in the wet sands on morning beach walks are related to sea urchins, but sea urchins can cost much more than a dollar or two or even hundreds, because the roe (or corals) of the little urchin is considered a culinary delicacy.

In Japan, sea urchin is called “uni.” People travel the world at great expense to sight a bite-sized preparation of raw “nigirisushi” of sea urchin, “uni nigirisushi” or “uni nigiri” for short.

A little background on raw seafood talk: “Sushi” is a name for various combinations of raw seafood, fish and rice, and “sashimi” is the raw fish or other seafood alone – no rice.

“Nigirisushi” means “hand-pressed sushi.” For nigirisushi, the sushi chef presses an oblong of sushi rice into the shape of a small rectangular box. The chef than carefully drapes a topping (or “neta”) over the rice. That is a nigirisushi.

When sea urchin roe (or “uni”) is the neta-topping, the rice and roe can be wrapped with a strip (or “nori”) of seaweed or other edible binder. The binding strip keeps the uni nigiri together, because sea urchin roe is delicate and the corals easily disassembled. The resulting uni nigirisushi (the rice, roe and weed) is called a “gunkanmaki” (or warship) because the entire toss-in-your-mouth concoction resembles in appearance a tiny battleship of the waves.

A sushi chef handing over a nigirisushi gunkanmaki of uni may bow politely and utter the quiet exclamation, “Hokkaido,” to honor the preparation and presentation.

Hokkaido is the northernmost and second largest island of Japan. In shape, it does resemble the head of a horned dinosaur where it rides the Northern Sea Circuit defending the watery borders of its homeland. Of the bounties of that homeland is its seafood. The Hokkaido catch is reputedly and reportedly some the freshest and tastiest on our planet.

Chief among the salt-water treasures is the uni urchin that is transformed to gunkanmaki and other wondrous dishes for sea urchin aficionados rushing to the “asaichi” (or morning markets) of the Northern Island Circuit. For them, Hokkaido is royal realm, if not a revered temple, where reign and can be found the crustaceous hedgehogs of the seas.

Urchin is an old nickname for that little roly-poly mammal the hedgehog, and urchin is the name applied throughout the restaurants of the world for the uni of Japan’s cold waters.

Hokkaido.

I wish you well on your search for the tastes of your dreams.

May you discover the sea urchin you seek and escape any teenaged pirates or juvenile rabble rousers vying for space at the asaichi.

Uni, Hokkaido. See you at the morning market.

Grandpa Jim