Friday, April 13, 2012

The Cruelest Month

"April is the cruelest month." Or at least that's what T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Wasteland" and today was another example. After the tease of a very warm March, this Friday the thirteenth of April was raw and windy. It started out with such promise, but turned to rain and dank. I took this photo of a blooming crab apple tree yesterday at Linwood Park when it was sunny.  At least these blossoms haven't been visibly harmed by the two straight days of morning frost.


But after stumbling though the morning and having a healthy lunch of turkey burger and home made soup, at least I had tennis with the geezers to occupy the afternoon. We played later than normal to allow one the guys, who had to teach a class, to be able to play, otherwise we would have been down to just three geezers. We played inside at Fort Snelling, so we weren't much affected by the wind and rain. We wedged two pretty good quality sets into the ninety minutes on Court eight - 6-2, 5-7. As we left the courts we saw the women tennis teams from St Kate's and Hamline begin a scheduled match that had apparently been moved inside. I didn't recognize the Hamline uniform colors right away, not until I read the name on the shirts. The old college colors from my days on the men's team were cherry and gray, and now they are a kind of cranberry and another version of gray. Also, their uniforms are a lot nicer than what we wore for matches. We had polo shirts. I guess the extra money for tuition to attend that institution must go for something. Why not better threads for the teams? [The tuition when I started there in 1961 was $700 a year]

More of "The Wasteland":

"APRIL is the cruellest month,
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing Memory and desire,
stirring Dull roots with spring rain."

1 comment:

Santini said...

They've been burning hay bales in the apple orchards here the past several nights. April is indeed cruel to the apple growers this year.

Nice poetry, too.