Spring fever

I don't doubt Paris is lovely, but give me an April day in Iowa City, when nature has decided it's had enough of trying to kill us and sends a peace offering that would be criminal to resist.

When the university students make us question our questions about these kids these days (see exhibit A), by showing sense enough  to drop books and sweaters wherever they will land and stretch out on the sun-warmed Pentacrest like colorful lizards or shipwrecked sailors washed up on the shores of spring. And even sensible grownups manage to find an hour to sneak away and drape bare limbs over the back of a Ped Mall bench.

There's something about the new-warmed air -- just humid enough to feel like possibility, soft against your skin. Something about the daffodils yelling "Gold!"

Something about knowing even from these first, glorious afternoons, that their kind are numbered, that they'll be a long time coming back. Something that says just drop whatever else you're doing. The only right, the only reasonable thing to do is grab it when it comes: the perfect April day.