APRIL REMINDS US OF
WHY WE LOVE THE SEASONS

By Dan Rattiner

Some people enjoy living in Southern California where the sun always shines, the flowers are always in bloom and one day is just like another. I am not one of those people, and as a case in point, I offer the month of April.

Here in the Hamptons, April is a month of anticipation. Winter still lingers, sometimes bringing with it additional and unexpected cruel blows, particularly at the start. But by the middle of the month, spring starts to stir. It might be the just the buds of the gladiolas in the ground on the town green. It might just be a sunny day where you can throw off your jacket and breathe the warmth in the air as the earth wakes up from its long sleep. It might be the surprise of still not seeing leaves on the trees. There is always a day in April that is 75 degrees, when everyone has a spring in their step. And yet the trees, cold and brittle, still remain lifeless and barren - a strange counterpoint to what the sky and the birds and the animals and our own hearts tell us.

Here in the middle of April, with thousands upon thousands of trees in our special universe, it seems absolutely impossible that by Memorial Day, just 45 days from now, all will be green and lush and in full bloom for the arrival of the summer visitors. But in this very special landscape, it will happen.

What also will happen is the arrival of billions and billions of tons of sand on our 60 miles of beaches. At this time, our beaches are still bereft strips of flotsam and jetsam, with only whisps of sand. But in just 45 days, a miracle will take place. The sand will arrive, not by the truckload, but by the invisible action of the sea, with tons of it washing up onto the shore every day at high tide and not getting washed back out by the low. Just weeks from now, the beaches will be soft pillows of the stuff, and it will be ready for sunbathing, swimming, Frisbee, volleyball, surfing and hang gliding.

As I write this, all the boats in all of our harbors - about a dozen of them - are still huddled together on the shore, each bundled in its white cocoon of plastic on the wooden braces they were put on last fall, to keep them from harm through the harsh winter. In 45 days, they will be rocking in their slips, ready for a party or a barbecue or a trip to Block Island. Some of them will even be heading out through the jetties, on their way to points unknown and new adventures.

Up in the sky in April, the winter birds are chattering away at the change, wondering where the winter went. As for the summer birds, they have not yet arrived. But they will soon. And when they do, the mating rituals of all these creatures, and of many other creatures - including humans - will begin.

We locals have our own concerns. It's been a brutal winter not only because of the snowstorms and below zero temperatures and freezing ponds and lakes, but because of the ice cold economy as well.

In the spring, the locals anticipate what the summer visitor season is going to bring, and this year, in this deep depression we are going through, they are not very optimistic. Nevertheless, on Friday evenings, it heartens them to see the traffic beginning to swell and the downtowns filling with people. Off down winding lanes, homes are being cleaned, lawns are being planted and landscapers are out raking up the debris of the winter, while in the downtowns, amidst the newly vacant stores, there are new businesses moving in -with the painting of walls, the banging of hammers, the whine of power saws and the signs in the windows filled with anticipation of shoppers to come.

People who have helped define this place were lost this winter. We lost Christian Wolfert in early January, we lost James Brady in late March and Paul Sidney in early April. Others have died. New people are born to replace the old.

Life goes on. It's to be another summer in the Hamptons. We look around at what we have to do to get ready. But as we always have, we will get it ready.

April is the time just before the big game. The people are arriving, parking their cars, and beginning to fill to head for the assigned seats in the stadium. Soon the games will begin. A bit dented and subdued perhaps, but nevertheless.

And the contrast between the suntan lotion and beach balls and 80 degree weather of July that we can look forward to, and the bitter cold zero degree weather of January with its mountains of ice and snow that we are leaving behind has never looked quite so stark.

April. For April Fools, for hope, for Passover and Easter and fitting out and anticipation, here it is.

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