Folks,

Dux:

Maple syrupal, as I like to call it, is fantastic on hotcakes and waffles.

I am not familiar with the comics you mention however I still have a rather eclectic collection of American issues from the 50's squirreled away in my wife's cedar chest. Up to about the age of 12 I used to do a thriving business trading comics with friends and relatives. We all kept stacks of them in a large cardboard box under our beds.

You'd just pick up the phone and call a pal and ask "Wanna trade some funny books?" The callee would almost always answer in the affirmative and the arrangements would quickly be agreed upon. There was a strict etiquette regarding these friendly transactions and certain comics were more or less agreed upon in advance to be more valuable than were others. I must say that those horse thiev....er horse traders hanging from the family tree must have passed down to me the right genes. I must immodestly admit that I was a master at this type of barter. As I recall, the best illustrated comics back then were the Disney comics and the DC varieties. Later on toward the end of my comic book infatuation I remember that the 'Flash' super hero comic was amazingly well drawn.

Congrats on the birding success. I have passed your info on to an envious C51 who returned to work today.

Spring is already painting everything a brilliant green down here. Everything is budding out and blooming. Mostly the days are mild and occasionally you catch the scent of something fragrant carried along on a soft breeze. The Forsythias are in full bloom and soon the Dogwoods and Azaleas will be blooming. That usually happens by Easter but Easter is early this year.

Someone told Lady T that unless you are over 90 years of age this is the earliest Easter you will have ever experienced. March is always blustery here however there are days like today and yesterday when the wind doesn't try to take your head off. More wind is coming after Wednesday as we get a reminder that winter leaves us on his own schedule. I am tempted to go fly a kite. OK. I don't actually have a kite but I know how to make one.

Kites. I remember back to a time 50 or more years ago when almost every tree, tall bush and telephone wire in the neighborhood held the rotting remains of at least one of my kites. Kite tails, fabric and sticks hung there for years and years. When I, as an adult, visited the home place I never failed to take secret notice that they were still up there along with the skeleton of the homemade rocket I'd shot high into the branches of the old sweetgum tree. You could only see that burnt out shell in winter when the leaves were off the tree. As a teenager, my pal Dennis, who would eventually be my best man at our wedding, and I built a huge box kite. It took weeks to build and both of us to fly it. We had a stiff March wind the day we flew that thing for the first and last time. It damn near took us away with it.