Signs That Spring Has Returned to Prospect Park

• The Mr. Softee truck at the corner of 11th St. and Prospect Park West
• Wonderful soft green grass spread like a quilt beneath the still-brown trees
• Baseball games at the ball fields
• Me in a jeanskirt, a short-sleeved shirt, and no hose, reading on a park bench with my shoes off
• Families having picnics
• Skateboarders at the bandshell
• Lovers wrapped around each other on blankets beneath trees
• Later: Me running in shorts and a t-shirt
• The weather at the perfect temperature for running: warm enough to be comfortable, but cool enough that you don't get overheated
• Kids on Big Wheels
• Dry horse trails (as opposed to muddy or snow-covered ones) (better for running, btw)
• Robins
• The little Hasidic girls wearing long pink skirts rather than black skirts as they take their Sunday walk with their parents
• Willow trees frothing green
• Nicely built men running with no shirts on (you never see the unnicely built ones without shirts)
• The return of the African drumming circle
• The sounds of their drums thrumming throughout the park
• Redbud trees in bloom
• White flowers on some other kind of tree (sorry, Ted, I'm ignorant on this point)
• More people than I've seen during all my winter runs combined
• Daffodils
• Birds tweetering
• At home, later still: the sound of the Mr. Softee song as the truck returns to the garage for the night