That picture up there is snapped by our Molly Powell, of a New Hampshire spring. I’ll have more to say about those flowers after some reader mail.

And before the reader mail, a word about my column, Impromptus, today. It starts with January 6 and the GOP. And continues with China, Ethiopia, Mexico, Belarus, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Taylor, Phil Mickelson, and more. Something for everyone, possibly. That column is here.

To an Impromptus last week, some responses. That column led with Mitch Daniels, and the recent graduation ceremony at Purdue University. Daniels is president of Purdue. He entered the stadium — the graduation venue — in unusual style, and delivered an unusual address. A reader writes,

My daughter was one of the graduates on Saturday and I was in Row 8 on about the 30-yard line for the grand entrance. It was incredible! And to mix sports metaphors, the speech was an absolute home run. . . .
Daniels never ran for president — a missed opportunity for the country, in my opinion.

That is a common sentiment (though not common enough, regrettably).

In the aforementioned column, I wrote, “In my lifetime, we saw the passing of the last World War I vet. Fairly soon, there will be no more World War II vets. Or Holocaust survivors. I’m glad we have so many — so many — on record.” A reader now writes,

My dad is 94. He’s one of that dwindling number of World War II veterans you referred to. He is a young veteran. He left home for training on his 18th birthday, but by the time he was trained and deployed, the war was over. Anyway, his grandmother lived to be 95. She told him about seeing the wounded men coming home at the end of the Civil War. (She would have been seven or eight in 1865.) He doesn’t have a lot of detail about those stories, but what struck me is, I’m hearing about men returning home from the Civil War, and I’m hearing about it second-hand. From my great-grandmother to my father, and from my father to me.
I don’t really know what this means, but it gives me pause.

In the course of that Impromptus, I spoke of the performing arts, and their return. A reader from Israel writes,

Apropos the subject of finally getting to see a live performance for the first time since the BC (Before Covid) epoch, tonight my wife and I will get to have that experience, viewing The Sound of Music, to be performed by the (amateur but very good) LOGON (Light Opera Group of the Negev) at the Jerusalem Theater.
The performance was supposed to have been a year or so ago, but was called off on account of plague.
I had forgotten all about it, when about six or seven weeks ago — before the theaters and concert halls had even reopened – I received a phone call from a very pleasant lady informing me that the performance would take place on May 19th and that my tickets were still valid. I teared up with joy. I told her, “You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me. We’ve been living in a cultural desert for over a year.”
I thought to myself that that lady on that day had the greatest job on the planet. She brought more happiness to more people in the space of a few hours than most people ever can.

Thanks to one and all for writing, and reading.

Let’s return to Molly Powell and the daffodils. Molly recalls a nursery rhyme (new to me):

Daffy-down-dilly
Has come to town
With a yellow petticoat
And a pretty green gown.

Also, a poem by A. A. Milne, called “Daffodowndilly”:

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
“Winter is dead.”