When the crocuses finally poke up you can usually breathe a sigh of relief that winter has finally loosened its grip. It's been a little late this year and I even had to shovel some 3 feet of snow off the ground to help them along but here they are. The sad part is that they don't last very long. They're the first spring flowers to bloom and just beautiful to behold.So what do chambers have to do with anything? In 2004 I was studying full time at the University of Toronto and I took a sociolinguistics course taught by renowned linguist Professor Jack Chambers. The course started in January and it was a very cold and snowy start to the year. The classroom was at University College in an old drafty room poorly heated and it was a fair hike to get to because there was no nearby parking.
The professor was a fabulous lecturer and I would spend each 2 hour class on the edge of my seat taking copious notes. During the first class when we all were shivering, he promised that by the end of the course we would be seeing the crocuses in full bloom and it would be "wonderful." At the last class in early April he told us of the crocuses he'd seen during his walk to the college and how "wonderful" it was. I mentioned the crocuses that had always grown in front of my Mom's house but I had never really noticed or appreciated them.
Later that year a new walkway was put in my Mom's house that plowed over the old crocus bed. I was determined that we'd continue to have crocuses the next spring so that fall I bought some bulbs and planted them on the edge of the front lawn. In the spring of 2005 they bloomed even better that I'd hoped. Alternate blue and yellow ones. The next year I planted white ones, and just last year ones I thought were multi-coloured but they're light yellow and smaller; still they blend in just great.
To this day I am thankful to Professor Chambers for a fabulous course (which I'm proud to say I aced) and for renewing my interest in spring flowers.
Crocuses at their peak on April 10, 2008
