No Parka:

While snowdrops have already shown up in the Photo of the Day feature, this was the first real shirt-sleeve day of the year, sunny and 60s. Mmmmmm. There should be an official observance, a movable feast featuring wild zither music, shameless flirtation, and a pilgrimage to the nearest gorge where snowmelt bellows free. A paid day off from indoor labor, musicians and dancers served on the house, a tax holiday on the purchase of loud shirts and little things with spaghetti straps. Throw open the doors and meet me at the bonfire with an effigy of Old Man Winter. Sing bawdy ballads 'til April Fools' Day dawns.

Virtual UN:

You never know what you're going to have to do next in public radio. Today the kitchen table is covered by five laptops with three different operating systems and four different wireless network interfaces running off the router stolen from my home and trying to share the printer stolen from my office. This is a little like an Australian, a Cajun, a Pakastani, and a Bronx cabby trying to explain the doctrine of the trinity to an Irish bartender. They all speak English, don't they? Nobody at the station gets to eat sitting down until it's done. Still the ambience is good. The studio was occupied by flamenco musicians this morning, and some saint dropped off a carton of baby donuts to absorb all this coffee. Despite the technical challenges a poor English major may encounter here, it's better than the fallback task, scraping my way through three feet of annual report with nothing but desperation and a sharpened spoon. Let's see--what happens if I click this icon...?

Saints Above:

While I can scrape a quatroon's claim to Irish heritage, the story of St. Patrick has always reminded me of the old joke "Why are you walking backwards?" Keeps the elephants away. "But there are no elephants in New York." Works pretty good, doesn't it. Now the more theologically inclined would say that the "serpents" Patricius drove from the isle were the druids and bards of traditional Celtic religion. While no one can argue the institutional success of the church in the Emerald Isle, many people, Irish included, maintain the centuries-long effort to Christianize its people is still a touch short of complete. Patron saints are a burden many places have to bear. I've always been fond of St. Lawrence, myself. While being martyred on a kind of barbarian barbeque, his last words are reported to have been, "You can turn me over now--I'm quite well done on this side." Who can resist a good one-liner?

Doing Backflips:

If you drop by the front page of ncpr.org today, you will find a character doing endless backflips. I would myself, if I had a less clutzy physique. You have blown our fundraiser goal out of the water. The phones are still singing like a dentist drill and the smoking pieces of our expectations have yet to hit the ground. The kitchen and the phone room look like the morning after Mardi Gras. The control room has been seized by bluegrass guerrillas. The membership team is no longer capable of speech as we know it. Thanks for rocking our world.

Essentials:

I started contributing to North Country Public Radio 25 years before I came to work here in 2001. Even then, I numbered it among my North Country essentials, alongside such items as a good woodstove, 40 cords of dry split maple, longneck bottles of Molson Golden Ale, and a daily dose of disco antidote--Steely Dan. Cold mornings in late winter, I'd take a pan of coals from the stove and shove them under the frozen motor of my rusty Dodge Colt--the sucker would either start or burn. It just needed a little encouragement, a little warm-up. From now until Sunday, we are in the Web Warm-up period of our North Country Essentials Membership Drive, and although the technology is a little higher, the intent is the same--a little goose to get the thing rolling. Why wait for the harangue? Pledge online now. Thanks for your support.