In Chicago, winter is the obnoxious house guest who, just when you’ve gotten him out the door, pops back for some forgotten item, whose car leaves an oil stain on the driveway, who’ll later send some unwanted remembrance of the unwanted visit. When, one wonders, will this finally end?
Here, the only clean break with the season takes place on the calendar. In reality, March 20, the vernal equinox (when day and night are equal) may or may not be the day to put scarves and gloves to the back of the closet, to move the 10-pound bag of de-icing salt to the top shelf in the garage or order the chicken Caesar salad instead of the hearty platter of pork.
Aware of spring’s false starts and winter’s tendency to revisit (we’ve had serious snowfall as late as April), each of us is left to decide what signals the true end of the outgoing season. While waving goodbye today to winter, Tempo has its fingers crossed.
“Boat pictures. When the boats start back up. We develop all the photos for the Spirit of Chicago, Odyssey Cruises, those type of things. At the end of March and early April, they start coming in every day.”
–Raymond Wallace, 29, photo printer at Magna One Hour Photo.
It’s not when I see hyacinths or daffodils because they can be buried under layers of snow. Winter can start and stop. It’s unlikely winter will make a reappearance after mid-May. I have no poetic reading for the change of seasons. . . . For me, it’s a question of temperature. . . .
“I know that winter’s over when I don’t have to wear a winter coat and I can go around in just a jacket, pants, of course, and a shirt and shoes and socks. But when I don’t have to wear outer clothing — I mean heavy outer clothing — then I know that spring is here.”
Mark Strand, member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and former U.S. poet laureate whose works include “Blizzard of One.”
“How to tell winter is finally over? Well, the tourists are finally packing their bags and skis up, and we Chicagoans can finally get our beautiful slopes all to ourselves. And as people bury their faces in the collars of their coats against the 50 m.p.h. blustery wind, they spend an extra moment staring in your watering eyes, as if to say, ‘Winter’s finally ending.’ Then they get into a cab.”
Al Samuels, actor at Second City.
“There’s a shift: All winter [customers] are buying books for warm-weather destinations. In March, the shift goes to European books. And the Europeans start shopping here.”
Linda Fish, 47, Rand McNally Store manager.
Lester Cherry, 47, StreetWise vendor.
“When the leisure life starts — when the new fashions are out and the smell of perfume is in the air. And the noise of nature life: birds singing in the air. And when parents start bringing their kids out. But winter is paper season, and sales start going down [in the spring]. You have to start working harder because . . . in the summer, people don’t want to stop, don’t want to carry nothin’.”
Doris Johanson, birder, Des Plaines
“For me, it’s the first warbler I see. Hopefully sometime in April. That’s the highlight. No more winter. Spring is here.
“The biggest warbler migration is in May. We get about 22 species of warblers. They’re the colorful ones. Some of them are blue, some have red on them. They’re small compared to a robin or any of the thrushes. They just flit.
“You’ll find me down along the lakefront by Montrose Beach. They have what we call the `Magic Hedge.’ You can maybe in one day see 13, 14, 15 kinds of warblers.”
Generoso Bahena, owner of the Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo Mexican restaurants, Chicago.
“I see some green start to come up and that means it’s time. Even a little bit of grass, usually in March. By the end of March, winter is over. We have to celebrate.
“We’ve just painted the walls bright colors. I don’t do all the walls but I do some. I have one yellow, one pink, one really red, one green. With the paint in my restaurants, it’s really bright in the dining rooms. During the winter, we just cover the walls with a color that is not so bright.”
Patrick Bales, high priest, Coven of the White Heart, a Pagan/Wiccan group based in south suburban Chicago and northwestern Indiana.
More Top Picks Best Watch Boxes For Men
“When spring returns, it brings with it the first hint of green bursting from the buds of trees, the first warm breezes of the season, usually a late-season blizzard, and always the persistent chirp of new life nestled snugly under the eaves right outside my bedroom window.
“Our little feathered friends serve to remind me that, by gosh, there’s a 6 o’clock in the morning, and darned if you aren’t going to get up and enjoy it on the weekend. Even though we celebrate the return of spring at Ostara on March 21, for me, spring isn’t really here until those little birds wake me up to tell me all about it. Hey, who needs 8 hours of sleep anyway?”
Patrick Sullivan, 19, sales associate at HawkQuarters.
“In my mind, the first time it hits 60 degrees, winter is over. Business slows down a little, because hockey is a winter sport, but it balances out at the end of the day because of all the tourists and sidewalk traffic.”
Roy Kaelin, astronomy teacher at Loyola University and Triton Community College.
“There is a myth that comes up in astronomy around this time of year, and the first day of spring is always a good day to debunk it in my classes, which I try to do. It is that an egg can be balanced on its end only on the day of the vernal equinox, which is the astronomical start of spring, and the notion behind it is that the alignment of Earth’s axis is perpendicular to the sun.
“The truth is that anyone, with some patience, should be able to balance a raw egg on either end of its shell at any time of the year. Several things go into allowing it to balance: the raw yolk may act as ballast, for instance and, more often than not, it is the bumpiness on an egg’s shell that allows it to stand on end. Often, too, the mere levelness and sturdiness of a tabletop also helps it to balance.
“Of course, the unseen trick to a successful balancing act every time is to sprinkle a few salt crystals on the tabletop, which can act as props, before attempting the balancing act.”
“Personally, if I’d be out observing the night sky in the wee hours, the constellation Cygnus (the Swan), most often recognized as a Summertime star pattern, I’d see rising before sunup in Spring and that tells me the new season is on the scene. When I was much younger, I had newspaper routes, both morning and afternoon and on my morning route I noticed two sure signs were purple violets blooming in yards and bigger ad sections inserted on Thursday into the Trib!”
Allen Hall, motor home owner, rural Minnesota
“We live on a lake but we’re half-time snowbirds. Winter is over for us when our lake turns liquid again.
“That’s when we return. We got back in April once and we had ugly green-gray ice, what they call `rotten ice.’ It’s half melted. It has puddles. It doesn’t look very nice. It’s a mess. There’s nothing you can do with it except suffer.”
Megan Ross, Hope McCormick curator of birds at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
“For me, I try to let the birds let me know when spring is coming.
“Right now we have ruddy ducks at the zoo. They’re a small, North American species of duck that have stiff tails that stick up at the back. During the non-breeding season, they molt into a different plumage where it’s starting to look a little drab. But when it’s spring, the males molt into their breeding plumage. They get a blue bill, almost the color of a robin’s egg. . . .
“We also have some species that start building their nests like the European white stork. They do some fantastic courtship displays where the male and female make this loud clapping noise with their bills and they are putting their heads on the top of their backs. It’s happening quite frequently these days.”