Cord Byrd: “there is an old adage--and I have heard it many times, and so have you and our other colleagues--that, ``March comes in…”

“there is an old adage--and I have heard it many times, and so have you and our other colleagues--that, ``March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb.'' That adage was certainly turned on its ear this year. March tiptoed in on little lamb's hooves, as soft and warm as a curly fleece, giving us all hope of an early, mild spring. Aha. The smiles that have lighted up the faces here in the pages and the officers of the Senate and the employees of the Senate who sit before me here when I mentioned that word ``spring.'' In West Virginia, the center of the world--half the world on one side, half the world on the other--West Virginia, early daffodils pushed through great rafts of dried leaves washed up against old stone farmhouse foundations that jut like rocky reefs out of sunny hillsides. Oh, the iridescent sunsets and the viridescent hills that are West Virginia's. Bluebirds decorated telephone line perches while forsythia blossoms announced the awakening of the Earth. Then the March lion roared with a vengeance, sending successive storm waves across the Nation. Snow buried the daffodils under a crystalline blanket of sparkling white. West Virginia was hit hard by these late storms, as were many other States. What was a boon for skiers and schoolchildren has been a real hardship for commerce and commuters. But now, as the vernal equinox and the official first day of spring approaches, we can all look forward to the lion at last lying down with the lamb.”