I think I'm immune to Spring Fever!

I'm not feeling it.

Spring officially arrived nearly two weeks ago, but I'm not feeling any symptoms of spring fever - haven't for years. I've come down with some serious cases of playoff fever while following the Red Wings, the Pistons and even the Tigers in recent years. I've certainly suffered through annual cases of cabin fever during our long, gray winters. I even caught a brief, mild case of boogie fever a couple of years ago, when I dug out and played an old Bee Gees album.

We all take precautions to avoid catching the flu, but spring fever is something that everyone wants to catch and I, somehow, sometime, seem to have developed an immunity to it! And I'm more than a little concerned. Listening to the first Tiger exhibition broadcasts from Lakeland on my RCA transistor radio used to bring it on. Brown grass peaking out from under the melting blankets of snow on the lawns on Hinton used to bring it on. Sunny mornings walking to St. Cyprian School used to bring it on. Lots of things used to give me spring fever ...

• Buds on the trees in Memorial Park
• "Open Soon" on the marquee of the Fort George Drive-In
• The plywood being removed from the windows of Bob Jo's
• The slightly rusty chain (from spending a damp winter unused in the garage) of my Evans bike
• Radio advertisements for Boblo Island
• Newspaper ads for Keds and Red Ball Jets
• My first glass of grape Kool-Aid of the season

I still enjoy spring. I sure look forward to it. But I don't embrace it, and it doesn't embrace me, not the way it did back in 1963; when I laced up my Red Ball Jets, gulped a glass of grape Kool-Aid and hopped on my bike (with its freshly oiled chain) to meet the guys at Memorial Park.

What about you? What gave you spring fever when we were growing up Downriver? Do you still get spring fever? If you do, what triggers your symptoms now?

Send me your Downriver spring fever memories, or post some here. Let's start an epidemic of seasonal smiles and optimism. It sure beats hay fever, which - unfortunately - I still get!

THIS is all I’m going to be when I grow up?!

From left: Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, "Deke" Slayton and Scott Carpenter. Photo credit: NASA

With another birthday rapidly approaching, I have to admit to myself that I’m never going to be an astronaut. Heck, I’m never gonna’ even make it into space.

Growing up Downriver in the 1960s, the heroes of the boys in my neighborhood were named Shepard and Grissom, Glenn and Slayton, Cooper, Shirra and Carpenter. The original “Mercury 7” astronauts were mid-20th Century American swashbucklers who rocketed into the darkness of outer space, chasing adventure and pursuing the unknown. And they inspired us in ways that Mantle, Maris and Starr just couldn’t.

We didn’t want to simply be like those guys, we wanted to be those guys. Because we were afraid that by the time we grew up, being an astronaut would be different. It might even be just a job, like our dads had!

And we couldn’t imagine anything more boring than ending up like our dads. They just, well, went to work every day – at places like PEP Lines Trucking, or Wyandotte Chemical, or the Riverview DPW.

So, every cardboard box rocket ship we “built” became our way to blast out of the old neighborhood and into the excitement, adventure, and the unknown of what lay ahead for us as adults.

I thought about those days earlier this week, as I made my way downstairs in the early Monday morning darkness of inner space (home), with my family still asleep. I was getting ready to go, you guessed it, to work, and I thought, “… is this really all I’m going to be when I grow up?!”

By the time the coffee was brewed, and I was ready to leave, the rest of the family was up and getting ready for their day – the kids for school, my wife for the office of the small business she owns.

As I drove (not rocketed) off into the morning darkness, I looked back at the lights glowing in the house and thought about my dad, all those Downriver mornings, disappearing into the same darkness … before we were awake … to go to work … to make sure we had everything we needed.

I understand now that the real heroes of my old neighborhood, so many years ago, were actually the guys named Joe and Vic, Ray and Jay, Tom, Bill, and Henry – our dads. And you know what? One of those guys is a pretty good thing to be when you grow up!