The chorus of the morning

One advantage of coming home at 7:00 in the morning at this time of year is that I get to experience the chorus of the morning: songbirds declaring their locations, staking out fluid and overlapping territories, calling for mates, warning off rivals, all at once.

I saw my first Robin of Spring yesterday, two days before Spring actually arrives! It was a big fat one who stood on my lawn and stared at me as I pulled up in front of the house. Then I watched a Cardinal light up crimson in the upper branches of an Oak at sunrise as it sang "wit-wit-wit-witwitwitwit-dEEEuurrr".

On the way home this morning I heard this on NPR's Morning Edition:

Lessons From The Recession In The Classroom

I had a slight thrill of recognition when the narrator spoke of driving through the Pocono "mountains." (There really are no such things, despite what countless skiers and snowboarders and honeymooners will yell you. The Poconos are actually a highly eroded plateau. Very strange to drive through that terrain knowing that fact.) He spoke of travelling to a public college in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and I wondered "where?" Then he revealed he was at Luzerne County Community College, just down the street from me!

It's a report on a topic of some interest to me, how the faltering economy is affecting college enrollments - negatively for some schools, positively for others. Sadly, I don't think the report ever specifically states where L.C.C.C. is located - it's in Nanticoke! So anyone who listened to this report today, who heard a brief snatch of the carillon bells playing, was listening to an audio postcard from my hometown!