March is the month of the lion and the lamb

An old saying warns that March usually comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. I also thought it could be reversed, coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion. This year, I think the first version is the true one, perhaps going along with the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil's prediction for a long winter, since he saw his shadow this year, which is the usual prediction.

The weather predictions of WRDE's "don't get too comfortable" head weatherman Paul Williams usually have a warning for the viewer "just to be safe." I am old enough to remember the infamous March Storm of '62. I was 14 years old at the time. We have to rely on some of the old black-and-white photos that our parents took of downtown Milton flooded so severely that people traversed the downtown area in front of the Milton Theatre using rowboats.

The long-ago Collins’ Men’s Store stands in the foreground, and I'm sure the beloved Samuel Shapiro's Variety Store was next to that. You could get anything from needed sundries to Ship ‘n Shore blouses there. Does anyone remember the old Silco's that used to sit at the bottom of the hill across from the Milton Fire Department? That was even longer ago.

I remember once when I was about 4 years old and home sick from kindergarten, or pretending to be, I looked down from my bedroom window and saw my father in his dusty Draper King Cole work car with the radio. He held his flannel-shirted arm out the rolled-down window waving a bag of candy he had bought from Silco's. Back then, it was in a bin and was scooped out into a bag.

Anyhow, to go back to the Storm of '62, our Dewey Beach cottage was flooded with mud as thick as a pan of brownies. My father drove the same company car down the flooded road on Rodney Street to survey the damage, with the water above the wheels. Our crop duster friend, Al Johnson, flew us in his small plane over the whole peninsula to see the results of nature's dramatic March winds. Pieces of the Rehoboth boardwalk near Stuart Kingston floated down the beach along with safes from stores.

The end-of-March winds in 1974 brought a fire to the Moore Building on Rehoboth Avenue, where I lived then. My neighbors in the building included several genteel older ladies some of you might remember if you're old enough: Mrs. Sue Burton, Mrs. Dorothy Quillen, and Miss Ethel Donahoe of the Thunderbird Shop fame all creaked down the stairs in their nightgowns to sit outside on the white bench in the March chill. I caught "mechanical pneumonia" and was out of school teaching for a week! I went home to my mother's in Milton to recover and was allowed to doze on her favorite beige corduroy La-Z-Boy recliner. After being fed her homemade "pot herb" tomato soup, I faded in and out of consciousness, falling asleep between episodes of "The Edge of Night" and "As the World Turns."

Then in the late 1970s, there was a blizzard when I lived in Lewes on Massachusetts Avenue. There was a mountain of snow in front of the small house that my mother contact-papered later on. I guess she did love me, because she called the Lewes Fire Department to rescue me. I insisted they also take my Afghan hound, Mr. Diamond, to the fire hall. There I enjoyed ladles of steaming chowder served by the Ladies Auxiliary.

There was an ancient furnace in that house that had to be lit with a match. I just couldn't figure it out, so the Lewes Police stopped by every evening to light it for me! But March isn't all bad, and of course there's Mardi Gras, and sometimes Easter, a movable feast. One time, the UPS truck pulled up in front of my house and the delivery person carried a huge, mysterious box up the steps. It contained a treasure trove of Mardi Gras beads that had come all the way from New Orleans, but the sender remained anonymous.

As Shakespeare wrote, "When daffodils begin to peer ... then comes in the sweet o' the year!" Some small green shoots are even now beginning to come up in my yard between the islands of snow, and the pussy willow branches poking the oil tank make a scratching sound in the wind, but it is not unpleasant. Soon, fragrant blue hyacinths will send a plume of scent from the porch across the alley, reminding me of the inevitable return of spring on Hazzard Lane as I paint papier-mache eggs with Easter scenes for the upcoming “bunny shows.”

Finally, my beloved husband Jeff, who is typing this, has also reminded me that his birthday is March 1, which begins the Big Winds Month, according to my horoscope book, "Indian Love Signs." We also were married March 20, 1984. My beloved Afghan Mr. Diamond ran off during a late snowstorm before the wedding, but he returned several days later, and all was well!