HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY !

Spring is in the air here in Sonoma County. Some of the shrubs and trees are beginning to blossom. We have daffodils blooming all over the place and my rose bushes are leafing out like winter is over. There's still a chill in the air at times, but warmer days are definitely around the corner.

Dickie and her friend, Nadine, attended a Santa Rosa Symphony concert this afternoon while I stayed home and watched the end of the golf tournament at Pebble Beach, which Phil Mickelson won handily.

For the rest of the time today I continued reading Ben Franklin's writings. I think the volume I'm reading contains most everything he published, which was quite a lot. Presently, I'm going through articles he wrote for London newspapers in the years preceding the Revolutionary War. Ben was a loyal Englishman, almost to the last. He was certain in earlier years that, if his countrymen (the colonists) were treated justly, they would never rebel. In that he may have been too idealistic, but his writings suggest that he was realist enough to see that war was becoming inevitable by about 1773. It's fun to see how his own attitude gradually changes. What an interesting time that was!