“Spring Hopes: Eternal”

We’ve noted the Post’s proclivity to print pat points about the weather. Now it’s time for the Times to wax poetic about that same topic: “The Calendar Says Spring and You Expect Sunshine and Flowers?”. Someone on West 43rd Street is satisfying his literary leanings. Relevant excerpts to follow.

Exhibit A) The Surreal Hook, taking the form of a man dressed in a carrot suit:

Of all the possible signs that spring had, in fact, arrived in New York yesterday, a 5-foot-2-inch carrot strolling down Broadway at midday was a pretty hopeful one.

But not even the carrot could convince itself that yesterday, the official first day of spring, even remotely resembled springtime.

“It’s not spring yet,” the carrot declared indignantly. The carrot was inhabited by Venancio Meza, 45, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, who was distributing fliers for a health food restaurant. A chilly drizzle fell, and the temperature hovered around 40 degrees.

Exhibit B) The Grand Observation on All of Human Existence:

Somewhere in the human body, there is a mechanism that runs on a blend of hope and self-delusion and makes people believe that on the morning of the vernal equinox, the world around them will suddenly bloom. Even if the forecasters predict rain and cold – as they did in advance of yesterday – that little mechanism continues to crank away.

In other words, spring hopes: eternal.

So yesterday, New York residents and tourists alike were once again reminded of the century-old observation by the clergyman and author Henry Van Dyke: “The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.”

And finally, Dashed Hopes in a Gritty Milieu:

At Coney Island, where Astroland reopened yesterday, the sky and water were a solid sheet of gray, and the Boardwalk was all but abandoned.

Those who showed up at the park were obviously driven by a deep commitment to the pursuit of thrills.

Britney McCollough, 18, and Kyle Huneycutt, 21, two college students from Orlando, Fla., were determined to wring whatever fun they could out of a soggy Astroland, and rode several of the rides, including the Cyclone roller coaster.

“On the Cyclone, we froze our faces off,” Ms. McCollough said in an enthusiastic way that suggested that freezing one’s face off is a good and exciting thing.

Bill Hoffmann, come home, all is forgiven!