I read that Don Knotts, who played the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on the TV Show “The Andy Griffith Show”, which aired the year of my birth (1960) to 1968 died yesterday. He was also in the very strange film ‘The Incredible Mr. Limpet” of 1964, as well as more than 25 others, including one of my favourites, Pleasantville, in 1998. In that year, Mr. Knotts, who is probably the only famous person born in my hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, was honored when they named a street there after him. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, which was the reason I was born in there too, since my parents were on the faculty at that institution. He was due to make another appearance in Morgantown in August of last year but had to cancel because of ill health.
Mr. Knotts was 81.
Filed in Television | David Drucker | February 25, 2006 5:55 pm | 
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“Spirit Bear”
Originally uploaded by Mussels.
Thanks to Matt for this appropriately metaphoric photo…
Another thing I’m going to have to get used to here is the seasons. Not just the quality of them (i.e. W = Winter = WET). It’s the length of them. I see by the calendar that today is February 25th. I know February, quite well, or at least I thought I did. February was the cruelest month for me; it was the depths of despair. The sole holidays of the month were Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, and if you’ve ever followed this blog you know my feelings about the pink-hearted and romance-inflicting holiday. As for President’s Day, in recent years its just been a grim reminder of how far that institution has fallen. That was the February that yearly visited me.
Vancouver’s February says ‘Hah!’ Besides the cessation of the rains (at least for the past week and a half or so), it has also seen the first harbingers of Spring. Yes, you read that right. Spring is indeed arriving in the second month of the year, tiptoeing in like an early theatre attendee. I have proof: A few days ago I saw a forsythia bush showing yellow blooms. Today I spied a small daffodil. It was sheltered by a bush, to be sure, but there it was. In Boston daffodils aren’t due for another 3 months or so. Just in case those classic signposts went by unnoticed, the California lilac’s purple flowers, which have the most amazing smell later on (something like cinnamon, particularly after a light rain or morning dew), are out everywhere. Granville Island is running a little festival this weekend called Winterupption, which suggests that Winter will continue after the events are over with. I wouldn’t bet on it. I’d say its the interruption is really a farewell.
I note that there is a section of another web site, Japan-Guide.com that is dedicated to the blooming of the cherry blossoms in Vancouver. It does mention that there are some species that do begin blooming in February here.
Before all of my giddy Spring Fever gets too out of hand, there is one sobering fact: It’s cold outside. The temperature today was about 3°C and a few very small snowflakes have been falling here and there. Not the dead of winter, but nothing remotely vernal about it. It’s just started raining now, and rain is predicted for much of the coming week. In the words of Emily Litella: “Never mind”.
