I looked out the window, and what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise. Blossoms popping right before my eyes.
I could take an armful and make a treat. A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
I wasn't really so, but it seemed to me: Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.


When I was little, we used to sing Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree (lyrics above for the uninitiated) in the kids' classes in church. Growing up in the Southwest, I intellectually knew what the song was about, but I had no real frame of reference for it at all. I have no idea why it was such a popular song in my area. If someone had written a song titled Very Sharp Thorns on the Cactus in the Dirt, now that might have meant something to us kids. I still don't know what an apricot tree looks like. But in Washington, D.C. we have 30-50 varieties of Dogwood that I think fill the bill. You always know Spring is coming because the first things to bloom - the thing that stick out from the forests - are the Dogwood trees. Sometimes if enough of them are growing together along the highway, you have to do a double take as you drive by to remind yourself that a freak snowstorm didn't just leave a dusting all over the trees.


Last night a big thunderstorm came through and knocked all the white blossoms off the trees but it was pretty while it lasted.