The magnolia in my neighbor Rob's garden is budding, and some other perennials around the garden are following suit.  Which is a little unusual for this time of year.  But, whatever.  I mean, what are you gonna do?

I can't say that I would mind living in a more temperate region (I'm working on it, people). Unfortunately, I don't think New England is ready to be one.  Or more precisely, New EnglandERS.  Yankee biorythms are attuned to the long, cold winters—I'm convinced the personality of the region is shaped utterly by the seasons.  Do you think Emerson or Thoreau could have happend in Tahiti?  Not a chance.

Traditionally, New Englanders have been pragmatic because they've had to be.  Folks in Southern climes aren't because they don't have to be—in other words, they're frivolous because they can be.  That's what's so incongruous and annoying about immigrants from Southern climes to many New England natives.  The former's native generosity of spirit and naked frivolity seems a naive waste of precious heat and energy to the latter, at best, and at worst a brazen, obscene, insulting display of utterly unwarranted optimism. 

Can you imagine if the weather here was gorgeous all the time?  Or even a quarter of the time?  New Englanders would have to—horror of horrors!--smile and enjoy life (because not to do so would not make the sense it does when the weather sucks).  They'd have to be nice to each other and say "hi" to their neighbors (because they'd see a lot more of them, hanging out out-of-doors all the time).  They'd have to take life easier altogether. 

No, this is clearly unacceptable.  Their heads would explode.  After generations in the region, New Englanders' hard-on against the world is in their genes.  

The Globe editorial  I took this post's title from talks about that "odd sort of pride" New Englander's take in the extremes of weather:

...as if they were somehow our accomplishments. Way to go, Boston! Bring on those heat waves and record snowfalls and drenching rains! It's akin to the hometown swagger we show in our reputation as the nation's worst drivers. Can't take the wild temperature swings or navigate a rotary? Move back to Dullsville, rube!

But I'm not sure that last line gets it quite right.  I mean, does anyone honestly think of Boston as Thrillsville?  Is it the excitement of wild weather or braving Boston's rotaries that Bostonians brag about?  No. On the second point, particularly:  Bostonians don't think of themselves as bad drivers, they think of everyone else as. 

But the pride in the negative can probably be traced back to Puritan roots.  Steeped in Calvinism, as they were.  One of the pillars of Calvinism was, after all, man's enduring misery.  Bostonians take pride in the fact that they don't need no stinking optimism to endure their misery—whether the misery of long, dark winters, or the misery of eighty-six years without a World-series win (the "Believe" shtick was not so much optimism as mysticism). 

And native Bostonians' outlook on human nature is decidely Calvinistic.  If Calvin were around today he would probably join them in characterizing humankind as a collection of "douchebags" and "fucktards." 

Are you seeing the connection between the rough winters and the personality profile here? If the Puritans had landed further South, they might have traded their dark, heavy duds and somber outlook for bright-colored bikinis and thongs and a groovier worldview.  Or they might've caught malaria en masse and been wiped out instead of giving the pox to the indians.

But they didn't.  They landed here.  And they've been grumbling about the weather ever since.