Nostalgia for former signs of seasons

Bill Knight column for Mon., Tues. or Wed., April 16, 17 or 18

As this is written, the temperature is 75 degrees. However, it’s been mere hours since the Summer Game was snowed out for the Cubs’ home opener, forecasts call for more snow in just days, and only a few weeks ago Palm Sunday weekend’s blizzard caused one curmudgeon to grumble, “April snowstorms bring May bug swarms.”

Worse, surviving small-town and neighborhood merchants no longer seem to signal changing seasons with wonderful, cheap toys and trinkets and nicely distracting activities, all cycled through dime stores and children’s conversations like some secret Kid Code.

Before beds of tulips or daffodils, spindly day lilies or hardy dandelions were trampled by backyard baseball games like “500” or “hot box,” boxes of baseball cards used to arrive at local pharmacies or other businesses in March, sending an alert of sorts: “Spring’s here!”

March merchandising was followed by April’s simple pleasures, from bubble bottles with their viscous liquid (was it just dishwashing liquid?), to Pez dispensers with plastic caricatures of figures like Popeye shoving out pellets of chalky candy.

May? With warmer weather came more bicycling, and young riders got fancy with handlebar streamers, horns, bells and chrome baskets – and maybe a baseball card clipped near spokes with a laundry pin to create a “motor” sound.

Before schools let out in June, some traveling huckster would appear for a silly assembly featuring demonstrations of Duncan Yo-Yo tricks, and for weeks we’d practice “Around the World” or “Walk the Dog.”

July not only presented fireworks, but the personal version – cap guns, with sulphur odors, bangs and wisps of smoke. Plastic water pistols came out, too – especially on days that were scorchers.

Such temperatures caused kids to retreat to the shade of trees or porches in August, when comic books piled up and Superman competed with Unca Scrooge, Archie or “Classics Illustrated” as time passed in that way “Calvin & Hobbes” described: “The days are just packed.”

September’s store shelves had weird paraffin treats – weird, waxy molds of buck teeth or huge red lips or hollow versions of pop bottles with an ounce or so of sugar water inside.

Candy manufacturers vied with costume makers in October, so bulk sweets beneath glass counters tempted kids with Boston baked beans, orange marshmallow peanuts, and sugary “cigarettes” packaged to look like smokes, branded “Pell Mell,” “Cool,” etc.

November weather didn’t completely freeze out outdoor play, and pocket knives made a seasonal appearance, with plastic “mother of pearl” or wood-grain finishes on two-blade standards, or ambitious jack knives like Scout or Swiss Army versions to whittle and throw, play and imagine adventures with Native Americans or Jim Bowie.

December had Christmas toy sections, of course, and popular scene sets came out, letting kids create farms or gas stations or military battles on countless floors.

January drove children indoors, where board games, card games, puzzles and novelties kept youth as entertained then as electronic devices do now. (Really.)

Lastly, February usually offered a handful of days when temperatures increased along with wind speeds, and businesses had display boxes of kites ready to unleash on communities, where household rags became tails and fields would have laughing kids standing and staring with wonder at paper shapes in the sky – or running after a loose kite.

Now, maybe it’s goofy to cherish such memories (and sometimes, startled, recognize such “blasts from the past” at places like Cracker Barrel). But it can be as comforting to recall such frivolities as remembering the earthy scent of alfalfa, the delicate sight of a pasture of red clover, and the tender feel of a worn baseball glove.

Hopefully, today’s youth won’t be so busy – with Science-Technology-Engineering-Math challenges, year-around sports or music practicing, or mesmerizing screens of all sizes – that they miss building their own experiences and images to draw on in a few decades.