Punxsutawney Phil, the King of the Groundhogs, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, Weather Prophet without Peer, obviously made a bad call this year about the early arrival of spring, as many of our readers have noted. According to the calendar, today, March 20, 2013, is the first official day of spring.
So in anticipation of warm and sunny weather, which is supposed to set in at some point soon (we hope you are singing “Here comes the sun…” in your head), we are featuring spring photos from the past discovered in our archives in a folder titled “Spring.”
Leading off, we have a feature photograph from March 14, 1957, of a married couple from Squirrel Hill playing softball in Schenley Park with their dog Chappy. “The husband does the pitching,” the caption on the back of the photograph said, “Mrs. swings and misses and Chappy does the catching — only trouble is Chappy doesn’t want to give up the ball.”
Next up is a photo from April, 1977, of Shane McNemry, 5, of Ross, who “had to wear a warm hat and jacket to enjoy the spring daffodils in Point State Park. Spring has been playing hide and seek this year,” the caption read.
Batting third, a swinging photo of Helen Ruffolo of Hazelwood and her children Shane, 5, and Mollie, 2, taken at Schenley Overlook.
And batting clean up, a romantic photo from 1969, taken long before the spring flowers bloomed. The caption for this photo in the Post Gazette read: “Not spring yet, but… some mild February weather has led young lovers to enact scenes of love and romance outdoors before the customary season for such goings-on. Or as the poet said, ‘when winter comes, can spring be far behind?’”
There is nothing new under the sun. The hide and seek game continues. We know. “It’s been a long, cold lonely winter.” And we still are waiting for spring to arrive, for real this time.
