As I look out my front room window, I realize that maybe spring has finally arrived, after winter finally gave up, even if it didn’t want to.

 

It was amazing how fast things change out my window when the temperature gets up to decent degrees.

 

It was all that was needed to make the grass green and it also means the start of grass mowing for another year.

 

For many years since I had my stroke I’ve enjoyed watching my maple tree bud out and watch it put out its first leaves.

 

Once they start you can see the growth each day.

 

I bet if one was outdoors next to the tree you could hear them grow, like farmers used to say they could hear their corn grow at night (not true, is it?).

 

Being confined to a walker for quite some time, I dream of this time of year. I would be out in the woods looking for mushrooms or out at Pitcher Lake doing some fishing, but I know those days are now gone for the old Cardinal.

 

One of the big things for me is to watch for the school bus that picks up our little neighbor girl at the exact same time each morning.

 

Another thing I like about this time of year is my love for asparagus.

 

This year was great for flowering bushes and trees, like magnolia and red bud trees here in town. Also, those beautiful dogwoods up at Riverside.

 

Looks like the farmers are to have a good crop of apples, not like last year’s bad one.

 

A while back I received a large envelope, and on the address label was a bunch of colored balloons and written across it was The Charlie Gill Birthday Card Project, care of Cliff Whiting, San Diego, Calif.

 

As I opened the envelope, there was a smaller addressed envelope with a birthday card enclosed and there was a letter Cliff Whiting of San Diego, Calif., had written.

 

He had done an internet search and found there are 512 people named Charles Gill living in the United States.

 

Cliff was asking help from 511 of us who he didn’t know to honor one he did. It was his friend Charlie who was going to turn 60 soon.

 

He had been a good friend of Charlie Gill for 40 years. He thought Charlie would like to hear from us who share his name.

 

Cliff said just write a little or draw a cartoon or simply wish him a happy birthday.

 

You know me, I like to write so I told him all about little Dowagiac and some of its famous people and the Round Oak, Heddon’s and how we were only 25 miles from Notre Dame.

 

I also told him I was a columnist and had written 590 columns for our local paper since 1989 and sent him a few copies of my articles.

 

My wife got Cliff’s phone number on his e-mail and I called him.

 

Out of the 510 he sent out, he only got 60 of them.

 

A lot were not deliverable and he said some even sent a dollar bill. One was sent back in big, black marking pen that he had died. Charlie was a happy guy.

 

Oh, by the way, has anyone besides Peg and me seen John Eby on one of the GEICO TV ads? John is one of the two guys playing. John plays a mandolin.