
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120092
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPRING IS NEARLY SPRUNG - AND SO IS MY BACK

Now that you are over the shock of not seeing Wolf Blitzer on CNN all the time, you will have to realize that soon it will be spring.

Sure. I still miss the Blitz a little, but life goes on and I am preparing for spring.

The first thing I did this year was find the piece of tubing that I was supposed to use to drain the gas out of the lawn mower so that all that goopy stuff wouldn't make it impossible to start.

I forgot to use this tube. But finding it is still important. I will put it carefully aside so that I can forget to use it again next fall.

I will ask my son to start the mower and he will give me this lecture on how this stuff gums up the carburetor - I think - and I will smile sadly.

Who needs buttercups? You know it's spring when you hear this lecture.

The next thing I did was to walk out in the side yard and inspect all of this moss that has replaced the pitiable grass that used to be there.

Later, I will argue that moss is green, too, and nobody can tell the difference between it and grass from a distance and besides you don't have to mow, water or fertilize moss.

I have argued in the past that you get a much faster game of croquet on moss, but I don't do that anymore because we gave the croquet set away.

At this time, however, I walk around saying things like, "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, perhaps a bit of lime needed here, eh?"

I don't really know whether it needs lime or napalm. But this kind of talk makes you look wise and sincere, and it gives the impression you know what you're doing.

In getting ready for spring around our house, you have to ignore, as well as notice, certain things.

Certainly, the main thing I have ignored is this huge bird bath we got last fall.

This sucker weighs big-time and I have moved it twice. I figure it will stay where it is if I don't pay any attention to it.

I am also not noticing a very large pile of river rocks under the oak tree. I salvaged these from the wreckage of a very quaint drainage ditch we had before they put the sewer in.

The time will come when they will have to be moved to certain strategic places in the garden. But I don't want to think about that now.

My back still hurts from moving them the first time.

You can see here I am well along with preparing for spring and that I ought to be an example of virtue and loyalty to all of you slobs.

I can't tell you how Wolf Blitzer is preparing for spring, but we all know he is not a man to rest on his laurels.

by CNB