California Springs

As a child in California, spring came early to the East Bay, thirty miles east of San Francisco. The fogs and rains of winter, where the temperature dipped down to nearly below fifty degrees (burr), had passed and the warmth of spring brought out the sun, birds, and insects.

Author, 1956?, Easter in California

School was soon over, and we ran through the fresh grass. The ice cream/snow cone truck would play its jingle and we'd ask for a dime to buy and fill our mouths with that sweet sugar. The neighborhood kids would gather to play Freeze Tag, or Hide and Seek.

Before we had a dryer, my mother hung out the laundry as soon as spring came, putting away the drying rack that sat before our heater in our home's narrow hallway. My most vivid memory is the dragonflies that landed on the clothes line, their orange and green wings sparkling like jewels when the sunlight hit them.

My mom would soon plant her garden and we've have fresh, tangy tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers. Her gardenia plant would bloom and we'd smell the flowers' heady, perfumed scent.

My towering father, who commuted into a city for his job at a radio station, would change his long-sleeved shirts for short sleeves, and barbeque on the patio he'd built.

After marriage, when I lived on tropical islands, Puerto Rico and Guam, every day was the same as far as weather (sweltering); unless the occasional hurricane or typhoon blew through.

Now I live in Western PA to be closer to my granddaughters. I took this picture on April 3rd, and there is snow on the ground. It's snowed twice more, and snow is predicted for next week.

 

When I think of spring, it's those California days of warmth, no humidity, the laughter of my friends and the jingle of the ice-cream truck. Playing cowboys with my brother (now deceased) and other kids on my street, climbing trees, catching crawdads in the creek, my parents young and healthy, the innocent times of children.

 

In New Brunswick, Canada, where my Brides book is set, spring comes even later. I read that when the ice in the rivers break up it's like an earthquake. For a California girl, I understand that experience.

 

 

 

Night Owl Reviews gave my historical novel a Reviewer Top Pick:
'Historical romance readers will fall in love with both Amelia and Gilbert. "On A Stormy Primeval Shore" was a fabulous tale of life and hardship in historical Canada.'

Blurb: In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to New Brunswick to marry a man chosen by her father. Amelia is repulsed and refuses the marriage. She is attracted to a handsome Acadian, Gilbert, a man beneath her. Gilbert fights the incursion of Loyalists from the American war to hold onto his heritage. Will they find love when events seek to destroy them?

 

E-book and paperback are available at Amazon and All Markets

For more information on me and my books, please visit my website: www.dianescottlewis.org

 

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband in Pennsylvania.