It’s the end of a long week, my friends, and you will forgive me if I take a short break. But there are some good links below. If you want to introduce a friend to this newsletter, please:
For reasons that are common to people my age, I have been spending more time in the place I grew up than I have since I was in college. There have been difficult and worrisome things about that, but wonderful ones, too: spending more time with my mother, seeing my sister, and occasionally visiting with old friends to share notes on our mutual stage of life.
I have also experienced a full spring in eastern Pennsylvania for the first time since 1976 when I graduated from high school. I now live in New York City and Massachusetts, where the weather is dramatically different. Arguably, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have more in common with the upper South than they do with their neighbors to the north. New York spring is lovely in all kinds of ways, particularly the young people dreamily kissing on street corners as of no one else was there.
But nature, in a northern city, is the exception, not the rule. And New England is, frankly, cold; we literally have about four months when you can count on warm weather, and spring is short. We get about three weeks of cool weather and blossoms before the heat sets in, and if you love the outdoors, you are working. As I hastily dig, get seeds in, and get things ready for an equally short summer, I sometimes think about my Massachusetts forebears who actually had to do this to know that they would have something to eat in the winter.
Pennsylvania spring, by contrast, is just a wonder. The daffodils began in late March, and it has been one wave of color after the next. With one April visit, I managed to hit peak cherry blossoms. And this week, it was the azaleas that took the stage: mounds of blooms like girls in prom dresses spill over driveways, corners, and house foundations.
The picture above is from the front of my mother’s house: now try this one from the corner of her yard:
Or this one, from the driveway:
I am pretty sure that nearly all of these bushes began their lives decades ago as Mother’s Day gifts.
So, although it’s a big news day, I am taking a pause—to rest, recharge, and gather myself for the coming end of school (if you are a teacher, you know what I mean.) I invite you to read about the latest twist in the Trump Mar-A-Lago documents case (it looks like the prosecution has a cooperating witness on the inside), the latest revelations about Clarence and Ginni Thomas’s right-wing gravy train (those troubled teens programs are brutal—but they are expensive too!), and New York Mayor Eric Adams’ puzzlingly awful response to a former Marine’s horrifying decision to deal with a mentally ill man on the F train by strangling him.
In relation to the Thomas case, you might want to return to an interview I did with Dahlia Lithwick back in November: she has a lot to say about the corruption of the federal judiciary and believe me, it isn’t just Clarence Thomas. But it is also Clarence Thomas, and it is also Ginni, as I wrote back in January.
As an aside, it was at Dahlia’s book party last fall that I met the outstanding E. Jean Carroll. Her testimony this week in a civil suit against Donald Trump has been one of the most tough-minded public interventions about rape since Susan Brownmiller published Against Our Will in 1975.
And let’s not forget that yesterday, four white supremacist Proud Boys, including the toxic Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of sedition relating to the January 6 insurrection: gosh, Enrique—who knew that sitting in a hotel room directing the overthrow of the government was just as bad as personally beating the cra out of police officers yourself? Here, I introduce this October 2022, post about Proud Boy pal Roger Stone into evidence: sentencing will be in August.
Until Monday—enjoy.
So glad you liked it! In fact, at least one of those bushes was transplanted from Langdon Lane--I remember my mother going over there after dark, because we had already sold the house :-)
Beautiful! And yes, southeast Pennsylvania springs ARE different. Soooo lush! Those Pennsylvania Dutchmen knew where they were settling/colonizing. Thanks for sharing. And enjoy!