Winter is OVER!

trees
Originally uploaded by Cool Auntie.

Well, the time changed and Daylight Savings Time kicked in. If that isn't the last call for it to be Spring, what is?

These bare trees were photographed from my hotel window in Youngstown, Ohio in mid-March. The trees around here still don't have any leaves or buds yet, but the sun is bright each day, and the temperature is climbing each day as well.

I was in Chicago over the weekend, and I understand there was a nasty freak snowfall in Cleveland on Saturday. I'm glad I missed it - because I was enjoying 70 degree weather and seeing Bob Dylan, not once but twice. Not that inclement weather would have mattered, because everyone is "....expecting rain."

So - Bob Dylan. What an enigma but of course. And what an amazing set he played each night I saw him. I quoted "Desolation Row," which was close to being a showstopper, but not like "Mr. Tambourine Man," which was once the jingle-jangle anthem that turned my childhood world from black & white to color (OK - it was the Byrds and their Rickenbackers that did that but of course, without the song, they couldn't have landed the house on the witch, ya know?).

Instead of the imagery of a young man longing to join the circus that's coming through town, its the intimations of Mortality that we hear instead. Instead of imploring the circus to take him, the singer is perhaps talking to God, rather than the devils that once promised life would be fun. Very deep stuff. And there was the fun side, too. Like "Cat's in the Well" taking off as if it were "Treat Her Right," because the riff was the riff to "Treat Her Right." Wouldn't that have been cool?

Bob paid homage to his opener, the great country crooner and custodian of ironic tales, Merle Haggard, with his faithful and heart wrenching version of "Sing Me Back Home."

Haggard himself was quite the artiste. I can't get over his live delivery of "Unforgettable." Knocks Nat King Cole out of the water.

Country bumpkins are ruling this roost, oK?