Sweet Little Tassels!

  People are funny.  It seems that most folks are never satisfied with the way life treats them.  They are always looking for other things and the present situation is not to their liking.  This is especially noticeable with the weather.  Either it is too rainy, too dry, too windy, too cold or too hot.  Complaints run amok  with "I hate winter!"  "Oh, my word!  It is too hot!"  "This humidity is killing me!'  I sort of get tickled since all the complaining in the world has never changed the weather.  What the environment throws at us is the way it is going to be regardless of how much we whine.  

  In the dead of winter, most folks "cannot wait until spring" but, once spring comes and the blooms start to pop out, their love of the season changes.  "I hate pollen!"  Well, sorry folks.  If you are going to have spring, you are going to have pollen.  That is just life renewing itself.  Come on...get a grip and a box of allergy meds.  

  This afternoon, I decided a walk was due to work off a bit of that Easter dinner overload.  As I was wandering the hillside, the hickory trees caught my attention.  They were all heavy with "tassels" or blooms.  Yep, those allergy makers are out again!  For the past month or so, the trees have taken turns at making folks miserable.  Not me.  I find the trees' efforts to reproduce fascinatingly beautiful.  In my thoughts, the tassels are a lot better than the nuts that follow.   Until you have been whacked in the head by a wayward flying hickory nut, you have not felt one of Mother Nature's weirdest pains.  There is the instant of severe pain that comes with impact.  Then, afterward, there is that slow-healing bruised feeling that is aggravated with each touch.  Forget washing the hair with vigor, brushing deeply or styling the hair in any manner....for weeks!  Yes, indeed, the tassels are a lot sweeter!

  For the next few weeks, folks will be whining, sniffling and sneezing once again.  Keep tissues on hand, have a supply of allergy meds and dole them out dutifully while listening to lots of complaints about spring and how folks cannot wait until summer gets here.  (Until it is here along with the good, ole Deep South heat and humidity!)