April 16th Dave Wrote

"See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land."

It's finally spring, and this time of year always brings to mind that passage from the second chapter of Song of Solomon. When I was quite small, either Mom or Grammy Rosenberger had a picture book with a phrase from that passage at the top of each page. I loved the pictures in that book, and I've remembered that passage every since.

Somehow my work e-mail address was eliminated half way through the last letter cycle and therefore had to get all my news second-hand via Carol. I've added my address back to the list above, so please don't delete it.

What's happened since I wrote my last letter on Feb. 16? Well, we seem to have gotten though our long winter with a minimum of big snow storms. I think that I only really needed my snow blower for two big storms, although it was useful for several of the smaller ones, too. In March, it seemed to snow nearly every day for several weeks, but we never got more than an inch per night and that was easily removed with a broom.

Carol and I took several days off in late March and went to Montreal. I've always liked that city (and for me to like any city is really unusual). Anyway, I found a nice hotel in the center city area on Hot Wire (a computer booking program) for only 58 $US/night, so that made our stay inexpensive as well as fun. We visited a number of museums and walked through the underground malls. The most interesting part was visiting the butterfly room in the botanical gardens. They have a large greenhouse (or conservatory) filled with flowering plants and live butterflies. There were hundreds of brightly colored tropical butterflies representing about a dozen species floating among the flowers, landing on visitors, etc. Apparently, there are "butterfly farms" in tropical countries where people keep butterflies in enclosures, collect the cocoons and chrysalises, and ship them to museums for live butterfly displays. We really enjoyed it.

However, that may turn out to be the last trip that I ever make to Canada. The Canadian government is considering passage of a federal law that would classify any criticism of the gay lifestyle as a hate crime, even if the criticism involves nothing more than a preacher reading the wrong passages from the Bible. Because Canada has no Bill of Rights protecting freedom of religion, there would be no exemptions for churches. (If you don't believe this, see US News & World Report, April 19, page 14.) If they pass that law, I may never again set foot in Canada even though I love vacationing there.

New Paltz has had it's own gay issues since the newly-elected Green Party mayor started illegally marrying gay couples. (And I thought that the "green" in Green Party referenced environmental issues, not the naivete of their politicians!) Activities reached a climax on Palm Sunday. A Baptist church from Topeka, Kansas came to New Paltz to protest the gay marriage issue. Interestingly, this group picketed most of the churches in town because the group leaders were upset that the churches didn't put up a visible fight against gay marriage. Town police were warned in advance and found out that this "church" is little more than a hate group composed of lawyers that protests gay issues all around the country and finances their trips via lawsuits. They carry really offensive inflammatory signs and stomp American flags into the mud during their demonstrations in hopes that someone will pick a fight with them. If they can instigate a fight, they then sue the town for big money with the argument that the town did not provide adequate protection for their demonstrations. Apparently they often win such lawsuits.

Given that background information, our local police brought in reinforcements from surrounding towns, state police, and the county sheriff's department. They had 81 police officers on duty in New Paltz on Palm Sunday morning, including several in a police helicopter that kept circling above the protestors. The protestors failed to pick their fight and therefore supposedly failed to achieve their objectives. Nevertheless, they left local taxpayers stuck with a bill that I estimate will exceed $80,000 to cover police overtime. The gay marriage proponents in New Paltz had originally promised that they would cover all of the extra expenses incurred when the mayor started performing gay marriages, but so far fund raising is stalled at $2,400. Without even addressing my own religious perspectives, I should note that I am never happy when well-to-do malcontents expect me to pay bills incurred by their lawlessness. With that perspective, you might guess that I'm going to have real difficulty deciding among the next crop of presidential candidates!

Well, enough of my diatribe about social issues and politics. We should have plenty of grist for interesting discussions when we get together in the Poconos this summer. I hope all of you radical relatives will be there!

What else is new? A friend at church offered me the wood from a huge dead hickory tree that he had cut down because it was tangled in his wires. The tree must have been nearly 3 ft in diameter, and I think that I've gotten nearly 2 cords of wood from that single tree. The power company cut the tree down and left everything in about 5-ft sections, so I've gotten several good workouts hand-splitting the trunk sections into chunks of 100 lb or less, hauling everything home, and getting the pieces cut to stove length. I've got a huge pile that we'll work through with a power splitter when my college sons get back home for summer. I'm sure they'll be thrilled!

Sara and Terence's house was burglarized several weeks ago, and Sara lost quite a few personal items that she prized. The culprits were never caught. Sara and Terence decided they will need to install an alarm system to prevent recurrences. Jordan can't figure out why they took some of his mom's jewelry but left his own favorite toys. After all, if you're looking for good stuff, you wouldn't overlook toys!

Field work at my lab is starting again, and we've applied our first sprays to apple trees already. It will be different this season because our horticulturist left NY to take a job with Penn State at their Biglerville fruit research station near Gettysburg. Given severe budget problems in NY state, I don't think that his position at our station will ever be refilled. That leaves just two scientists at our research station, and I doubt that either of us will be replaced when we retire. However, I'm almost glad that I won't have to break in another new faculty member at our station: it takes a lot of energy to coach young scientists through the tenure process, and I'm getting tired of doing that for folks who leave after 4 or 5 years.

Enough for now. God is good, and we thank him every day for his many blessings.