138 Hello, April

Hello, April

Hello, dear savvy readers. I am disappointed that I didn’t get to write about April Fool’s Day, but you have probably heard all the jokes and tricks anyway. Instead, I broadened the theme to include the highs and lows of April. 

The first pithy saying that comes to mind is “April showers bring May flowers”… (and the Mayflowers bring Pilgrims! Drum roll - eye roll.) 

The other famous quotation that comes immediately to mind is “April is the cruelest month….” This is from T.S. Eliot’s famous poem The Waste Land. The line, with melancholy food for thought yet so perfectly crafted, is as follows:

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

On this note, here are some of the high and low moments of Aprils past and a few fun facts.

Some notable lows:

• Both Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr were assassinated in April 
• Apollo 13 exploded on April 13, 1970
• Fort Sumter – April 12, 1861 
• The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 
• (And, of course, we think of April 15 as income tax day even though’ we have a couple days reprieve this year)
• April was the month of the raid on the David Koresh/Branch Davidians in Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School Massacre, the Chernobyl explosion, the 32 students killed at Virginia Tech, and the Boston Marathon bombing. 

Some celebrations:

• National Library Week 4/12-4/18 
• National Park Week 4/18-4/26
• National Volunteer Week 4/19-4/25
• Palm Sunday 4/5 and Easter 4/12
• Passover begins 4/8
• World Health Day 4/7
• Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival® – begins 4/28

• Earth Day 4/22 
• Arbor Day 4/24
• Boston Marathon 4/20
• Jazz Appreciation Month
• Child Abuse Prevention Month
• Baseball is back 

                                                                      

 Some notables’ birthdays:

• Shakespeare 4/23
• Queen Elizabeth II 4/21 
• Hitler 4/20

• Leonardo Da Vinci 4/515
• Thomas Jefferson 4/13
• Charlemagne 4/2
• Lenin 4/22 
• Ulysses S Grant 4/27

And if you have a special someone in your life, it may help you to know that a diamond is the gem for the month of April and sweet peas or daisies are the symbolic flowers. 

The astrological signs are Aries until April 19, then Taurus through May 20. Aries traits include daring, courageous and energetic, and overly optimistic while Taureans are reliable, ambitious, independent and stubborn and materialistic. (Oh, dear, I am Taurus.) 

Spring is here! 

                                         Glenne