In case you had any doubts, Mother Nature has quite solidly reminded our staff in Nebraska and DC that springtime is fickle, and not always so warm and gentle (It's nearly always warm in our Florida location, so they don't really have "spring" anyway).
While it was a bit nippy in our DC location, at least we had plenty of beautiful sunshine yesterday, and we're supposed to have more today.
In our Lincoln quarters, we've been receiving some welcome rain and not-so-welcome wind in Southeast Nebraska. At least we're not out in "Cattle Country", in western and central Nebraska. They've got blizzard conditions in some parts of Nebraska today - which somehow seems terribly wrong and yet perfectly normal, as a fellow Lincoln wordsmith might have said.
In case you haven't heard, that wordsmith, former Lincoln Journal-Star columnist and longtime Nebraska Wesleyan English professor Leon Satterfield, passed away this week. He was 77, and died of complications from Alzheimers, a fate we wish on no one.
We knew Leon Satterfield in various ways - including through his daughter Amy, whom both Paul and Shawn have worked with before. Paul and his wife initially met Amy Satterfield in 1982, as part of a UNL/Wesleyan/UNK summer program in Guadalajara, Mexico. Amy was sick as a dog near the beginning of the adventure, and ended up at the American hospital, suffering from a burst appendix. That was the end of Amy's Mexico trip. The rest of the group went on to Guadalajara for the next six weeks while poor Amy Satterfield recovered from her surgery and then returned to Lincoln. As Paul recalls, the trip sponsors had a devil of a time contacting her dad, Leon, and her mom, who both spent summers in Colorado in a family cabin way the hell out in the boondocks.
Leon Satterfield had a truly unique way of "drawing clarity from confusion," as he used to say at the end of his columns.
We hope that as the weather rages - or, if you're in sunny West Palm Beach, doesn't - this spring, you think about gathering your own clarity from the confusion of your busy life.
Go to the Red-White Game on Saturday, if you get a chance. If the weather holds, grab a P.O. Pears Burger at the East Campus UNL Dairy Store. Find your favorite local record shop and celebrate National Record Store Day, whether it's in downtown or north Lincoln, one of the many down in Dupont Circle, or at a spin shop west of I-95 near the coast.
The world is moving so fast these days, every moment we spend laughing, enjoying cartoons, and enjoying life, helps every person to get through the confusion this modern world seems to create.
If nothing else, curl up in your favorite spot, and grab a book - Mr. Satterfield would recommend 'Huckleberry Finn' we believe - and get away from wherever you are for a while.
Wherever you are, remember - it's a warm, gentle, spring-like day somewhere right now.
Probably in West Palm Beach.
