by Jeremy Couso
SusanvilleStuff Editor and Publisher
This is it – my absolute favorite time of the year in Susanville.
When I was a kid, I always thought that Fair time, back when the Lassen County Fair was at the end of August, was the best time of the year. Summer, especially late summer, was a playground of long sunny days and stuff to do before the school year started.
At least that’s the way I remember it.
But I am much older now, and the things I find appealing about Lassen County’s four, very distinct local seasons have changed.
Except for winter… my thoughts on those seven months of the year haven’t changed at all.
But this, right now, is the perfect time of year in Susanville. Spring is turning into summer. It’s not hot yet, but warm enough during the day to make me appreciate that it still gets cool at night.
We have been lucky enough to have a cool, overcast May this year with lots of occasional moisture following up a considerable snowpack in the mountains. Because of all that water every form of vegetation is growing and blooming profusely. Green everywhere!
Brilliant colors in what I think of as the ‘second wave’ of blooms in uptown.
[editor’s note: at this point, as I was writing this, we felt a little earthquake. It was a 4.0 centered over in Cold Springs, Nevada. Been a few of those around here lately.]
This, to me, feels like graduation weather. It feels like the end of a long school year. Which was always a sigh of relief for me, having somehow narrowly escaped from one grade to another. Again.
The final two months of the school year, once warm weather finally got to Susanville, would seemingly last forever! I remember what seemed like endless days sitting in class, door propped open, smelling the freshly cut lawn outside.
Oh boy how I wanted to be outside. Anywhere but that desk.
And to those teachers who took us outside on a few of those sunny days to have a special ‘outside class’, thank you. That was awesome!
I can remember Mrs. Mendoza taking us outside for ‘beginning art’ class my junior year. The whole class moved out on the lawn in the middle of campus and drew on our big art boards. It’s amazing how distinct that memory is after… um… at least twenty years.
Oh! The sound of Rainbird sprinklers! From elementary school to college, for the last few months of the school year, there was that almost constant drone of those soothing, rhythmic Rain Bird sprinklers making that ‘tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-SSSSSSSSSSSssssssssss’ sound.
Every single day that sound played over the school-day soundtrack no matter what else you listened to.
Think about it, that might be one of the most common threads binding together every single student who ever passed through the hallowed halls of Lassen, or I would venture a guess, for high school and college students across the county.
[another editor’s note: I went and read about the Rain Bird ‘impact sprinkler’ and it was patented in 1933 and it has always had the distinctive sound. They actually tout themselves on their website as “the sound of summer.” I might have to agree with that.]
Another wonderful thing about this time of year – the sun is coming up early enough so that I have gorgeous light at 5:00a.m. when I leave on my morning walk. There is one lovely hour when everything is very quiet, and I have the world to myself wandering through uptown.
Every single morning this time of year is unique and different. Plants that were just buds on Tuesday are in full bloom by Thursday. The yellow flowers on the trees along Main Street in uptown have now turned to dark green leaves. The transition between seasons is rather abrupt this year, I think because spring got such a late start.
I am really bad at knowing what actual flowers are called. So, hopefully you will know what I mean when I say that the ‘trumpety-red flowers’ are blooming.
I haven’t seen the lilacs in town look this good since I was a kid. The apricot tree in front of our office here on South Roop street has more fruit on it than I have seen in the fifteen years we have been here.
It is going to be a beautiful summer in Susanville.
See you all next week! Have a great weekend and if you get a chance go to the Air Show Saturday morning between 7 and 10! Bye!
