Time to change
OK, mea culpa. I’ve learned my lesson and my shame is great. No more joking about that spring forward, fall back business. A couple people wrote in to scold me for getting it backward, in spite of the fact that I’ve been running that gag for years. The irony is that I had one clock at home that refused to change this time around, so I found myself chronically late for everything this past weekend. Or chronically early for everything. When you get right down to it, I STILL don’t know what time is for realsies.

Daylight shiverings
I DID notice that it was somewhat light at 7 p.m. at the start of the week. It was also very cold, but at least there was enough light so that you could see when the tip of your nose turned blue.

Press Run
The sad announcement that the Sun Journal would move its press operations to Portland has inspired me to publish a novelette called “Press Run” I wrote a few years ago. It’s about a newspaper that comes under siege after drilling in a local bog releases ginormous monsters that come stomping through a blizzard to eat people and generally wreak madcap havoc on the news crew stuck inside the old building. Man . . . I was really weird back then.

Get yer check yet?
With stimulus checks flying all over the place these days, this has become the hot new conversation starter on the street. As far as I can tell, it’s completely supplanted staples such as “Catch the ‘rona yet?” “How ’bout this weather?” and “Did you get your deer yet?” in hunting season.

Found money brings good luck
One of the funnest things about this time of year is watching the snow melt in the backyard and discovering various things you forgot to bring in at the end of autumn. So far I’m seeing a nice pair of hot pink Crocs, a soggy copy of “Emily of New Moon” and . . . whoa, look at this! Last year’s stimulus check. I’m rich, I tells you! I could get a dirt bike! Wait, I already have one of those. I could get a drum set! Nope. Got that, too. OK, who’s got a bouncy house for sale?

Oh, the things I’ll see
I’m on vacation next week, so send your news tips, crow sightings and snow-on-your-deck photos elsewhere. I’m off on an exotic journey. Of course, we had to narrow it down this year, what with many places being shut down to travelers due to cooooovid. No Romanian get-away or Hawaiian retreat this time around, but I think I’ll have just as much fun and adventure in sunny Thorndike.