For thousands of years, those living in Persia (today Iran and Afghanistan) have celebrated the first day of spring with Norouz (“new day”), which is essentially a Persian New Year Festival.  (Similarly, in Egypt, both Muslims and Christians honor the beginning of the season with a national holiday on March 21 that has a wonderful name: “The Smell of Spring” – or Sham Al-Naseem.)  Held on March 20 or when the vernal equinox falls, Norouz is a 13-day festival celebrating the rebirth of nature, with activities dating back to ancient times.

In preparation, modern Iranians still practice khooneh takouni which means, "shaking the house," or spring cleaning, for several weeks before the festival. They also buy new clothes, bake, and germinate sprouts, which are symbolic seeds of renewal.  Other customs include gathering with friends and relatives, staging bonfires, painting eggs, and picnics, with the highlight being Haft Sin, a beautiful table that is set with 7 symbolic foods that begin with s and represent the 7 creations. Some think it represents seven attributes: rebirth, happiness, health, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.  Popular choices include sabzeh (green sprouts, to symbolize rebirth), samanu (a pudding where wheat is transformed to symbolize Persian culinary skills), senjed (sweet dried fruit from the lotus tree, which represents love), somaq (sumac berries mimicking the color of the sunrise), serkeh (vinegar for age and patience), seeb (apples for health and beauty, and seer (garlic for medicine).

Other symbolic items are at the table, such as coins for wealth, goldfish in a bowl to acknowledge the sign of Pisces (which the sun is leaving) an orange floating in a bowl of water to represent earth floating in space, a bowl of milk to nourish the children, painted eggs for fertility, or candles for enlightenment and happiness.  It is customary for the head of the house to say a prayer for the transition at the moment that the vernal equinox occurs. 

The idea of welcoming spring is ancient, and a beautiful tradition.  Indeed, despite your suspicions, an American spring tradition -- spring cleaning -- was not created by your mother just to get you to scrub the floor and wash the drapes every April.  With its roots in the Persian Norouz, the traditional spring cleaning can also be traced to the ancient Jewish practice of cleansing the home in anticipation of the springtime holiday of Passover.

In the United States, spring cleaning is primarily a New England tradition.  Back when homes were heated with wood or coal, and the house was sealed tight against the elements, everything inside got grimy and soot covered.  Combine that with five months of tracked-in slush and mud, and when April rolls around, it's Pine-Sol time.   

Believe it or not, spring-cleaning can be a family activity.  Preparation is the key.  Set aside a day, and seal off the borders.  Make sure everyone knows his or her duties beforehand and play to the strengths of your crew. Let everyone take turns choosing the CDs for your spring cleaning soundtrack and be sure to have plenty of snacks and drinks on hand.  Celebrate your achievement on Sunday night by going out to dinner and a movie. 

Of course, spring cleaning need not be restricted to your home and yard.  Each year, an organization called Keep America Beautiful sponsors The Great American Cleanup, a three-month event (March – May) to encourage communities to clean up and beautify public spaces., with local affiliates nationwide who recommend activities that kids and families can do to help beautify their community.  

But in the Berkshires during mud season, all this activity begs the question: when does spring begin?  We think spring begins at the first sign that winter is loosening its grip, whether it’s a garden shoot poking up through the snow, the grace of a warm breeze on your cheek after a cold morning, the longer days, or the change in the light.  There are many simple traditions you can introduce to celebrate:

• Welcome the vernal equinox on March 21 (or any spring evening) with a seasonal dinner – fiddleheads, asparagus, pasta primavera, rhubarb pie…
• Force forsythias to bloom in a vase.  Pick enormous branches for a dramatic display of yellow on your table or sideboard.  Make a seasonal wreath for your door from forsythia or pussy willows. 
• Explore life in a spring pond.  Stephen Stroud, the science teacher at Pine Cobble, corrals his students to meet him outside on a warm rainy night and watch the salamanders and frogs find their way across the roads to breed in vernal pools.
• Get a good bird identification book, and mark the date and location you spot each bird.  
• Make maple syrup:  Many people in the region tap their trees and make syrup, including Eric Widing, who claims he knows that the boiling sap on the stove is turning into syrup when the kitchen wallpaper starts peeling.  “Sugaring off,” as it’s called, is unique to Northern United States and Eastern Canada, and was taught to early settlers by Native Americans.  (During the Civil War, maple syrup production boomed as Yankees sweetened their food with maple syrup to protest cane sugar and molasses, which were refined in the south.)  There’s a wonderful rural tradition, still adhered to by French Canadians in Eastern Canada, to cap the maple “harvest” with a Sugaring-Off Party in early spring that includes music, food, and snow cones made with maple syrup.   If you can’t make maple syrup, visit a farm that boils its own; there are many sugarhouses that welcome visitors – when you see the buckets by the roadside and the steam rising from the roof of the sugarhouse, it’s time. 

PLAY BALL

by Eric Kerns

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball,” wrote French-born historian Jacques Barzun in 1954.  No kidding.

Baseball is positively dripping with ritual and tradition.  I had only lived in New England for a few years when the Boston broke the curse, but my Sox-fan friends were eager to give me a crash course in Fenway folklore.  You could easily write a book on the traditions and meaning of baseball in our culture, and many people have.  The Library of Congress contains 9626 books about baseball, compared with 5424 for football and 4176 for basketball.  Even my tiny local library in Pownal, VT has over 70.

This makes sense; baseball and America grew up together. The history of baseball tells the story of immigration, industrialization, integration, and unfortunately, commercialization.  Over a hundred films have been made about the game and Ernest L. Thayer’s 1888 poem Casey at the Bat is as famous as works by Whitman, Frost, and Poe.   Baseball has entered our national psyche and even entered our language – home run, grand slam, struck out, and other baseball lingo (in case we haven’t covered all the bases) have alternative, euphemistic meanings.

Politicians have attached themselves to America’s pastime as well.  President William Howard Taft became the first commander in chief to throw out the first ball during a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics on April 14, 1910.  Every President since Taft, the sole exception being Jimmy Carter (which seems strange, what with the link between peanuts and baseball), has opened at least one baseball season during their tenure by tossing out the first ball.

Legend has it that Taft may have created another baseball tradition on that same day, but by accident. As the game approached its third hour, the six-foot-two, 310 pound president reportedly became increasingly uncomfortable in his wooden stadium chair. In the middle of the seventh inning, when he stood up to stretch his aching legs, everyone else in the stadium, thinking the President about to leave, rose to show their respect. Minutes later Taft returned to watch the rest of the game, the crowd sat back down, and the "seventh-inning stretch" was born.

There are thousands of traditions and superstitions specific to various major league teams and cities. From Anaheim’s rally monkey, to perogi races in Pittsburgh, to the dreaded Yankees’ dancing grounds crew, everyone finds unique ways support their team and celebrate the game of baseball.  But the most interesting baseball rites are personal, shared by a small group of family or friends.  A few days after the curse was broken in 2004, I happened to be driving past a small cemetery in rural Massachusetts.  I was completely amazed to see the number of “World Champion Red Sox” pennants and flags that had been stuck into the ground or attached to headstones, and was moved by the fact that baseball, and the love of a specific team, had created a bond more powerful than even death.

You may already have great family rituals associated with baseball, and children well-versed in the lore so they can pass it on, but for any non-baseball fans out there, I urge you to give it another chance.

- Throw an opening day party and invite your neighbors over to watch the season opener.  Get a wiffle ball game going in the back yard for kids who can’t sit still through nine innings.  Baseball is a social activity; it’s not the opera.

- Take your family to at least one major league game before you decide you’re “not a baseball fan.”  A day game.  Eat a hot dog, let the kids get all sticky with ice cream and Cracker Jacks, and enjoy your birthright as an American.  You may have a “conversion experience.”

- Check out local minor league teams or plan a road trip to several minor league ball parks (you’ve always wanted a Max Klinger Toledo Mudhens cap anyway.)  Our local clubs, the North Adams SteepleCats and the Pittsfield Dukes, play some serious ball.  It’s just a couple of bucks to get in and a perfect way to spend a summer evening with family and friends.

- Computing baseball statistics could help heighten your kids’ math skills without them knowing it.  A few months figuring ERAs, batting averages and on-base percentages, and they’ll be sailing though school in the fall.

- For heaven’s sake, have a catch with your kids.  Watch Field of Dreams if you haven’t figured out why it’s important. 

And never forget that new traditions start all the time.  My 4- and 6-year-old daughters live in a world where the Sox win the World Series a lot.  Now that’s a tradition we can all get behind.