COLUMN: On Cherry Blossom Tour, pink snow put on a show

The heavens were smiling down on the opening weekend of the 43rd International Cherry Blossom Festival.  

It was subject to change, of course, in this chameleon of a month we call March.

March is meteorological madness on the calendar, when all four seasons are wrapped together tighter than a burrito from Moe’s. 

By Monday morning, when the rains moved in, the mood turned damp and chilly. Then Tuesday apologized on behalf of Monday and gobsmacked us with sunshine.

Wrap up. Dress down. Keep sunscreen and chapstick on you at all times. The forecast gets volleyed back and forth across the net like a game of pickleball. 

To quote Charles Dickens in Great Expectations: “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot, and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.’’

In keeping with tradition, the festival hosted officials and royalty from other festivals during the opening weekend. The visitors came from the Minneapolis Aquatennial, the St. Paul Winter Carnival and the Fiesta San Antonio. I was asked to give the group an hour-long VIP tour of the city.

On Saturday morning, they put on sweaters and jackets and stuck their plastic forks in a plate of pink pancakes at Luther Williams Field. Late that afternoon, as we began the tour downtown in front of Hotel 45, they were begging the bus driver to flip on the air conditioning.

We rode through the city’s tree-named streets, turned our wheels up Mulberry and circled back to take in the scenic view from the top of Coleman Hill. Macon artist Sterling Everett once used this as a backdrop when he was the official artist of the festival in 2000. He called it “Spring Matinee.’’

As the bus tapped its brakes around the sharp curve on Ingleside Avenue, we could see the sign in front of the Fickling home at the bottom of the hill: “SLOW: Cherry Blossom Viewing Ahead.”

We pulled over parallel to the street. The wide-mouthed driveway was like a parking lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many people there at one time. 

People stopped for a reason. The Yoshino blossoms were spectacular. 

Appropriately enough, Saturday was the birthday of the late William Fickling Sr.  In his lifetime, he gave the city more than one-third of its 350,000 cherry trees.   

A magical moment happened shortly after the tour group got off the bus and strolled up the driveway to take photographs. 

The wind was blowing through the steep hill from Bowman Creek, and the blossoms began swirling like tiny parachutes.

Pink snow.  

We are accustomed to the flurries of pink petals that begin dropping from the cherry trees late in the bloom cycle. 

This was more of a blizzard. It was an awe-inspiring sight. We should have all plopped down on the driveway and made pink snow angels.

When you think about all the other things flying around this time of year – pollen, busted NCAA brackets and tax returns – this was a breath of fresh air.

I don’t think our visitors will ever forget it. They will be talking about it for a long time.

They are accustomed to a different kind of snow in Minnesota. Earlier this month, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul recorded 7 inches over two days, the largest snowfall of the season. Minnesotans usually kiss the bare ground goodbye from November to April.

 I first volunteered as a tour guide for the festival in March 2003. In those days, the tour took two and a half hours, traversing the city on a 24-mile, 33-street loop.

 I haven’t done as many tours over the past 10 years. But during those first 12 years, I hosted visitors from every state in the Southeast and as far away as Massachusetts, Illinois and California. 

Three women from South Korea once boarded my bus. They didn’t speak much English, but they never stopped smiling and took a million pictures. 

“This,” one of them told me in broken English, “is the most beautiful city I have ever seen.”

I once showed off the festival to a tour group from North Dakota. Spring was a late bloomer, and I found myself apologizing for there not being any blossoms on the cherry trees. Then I realized those folks had not seen a blade of green grass in five months. They were awestruck at anything that wasn’t brown.

  One year, a woman from Ohio asked me if it ever snowed in Macon.  I told her there is never a run on sleds at the hardware stores during the wintertime. And any forecast of snow has been known to close schools and empty grocery store shelves.

Oh, we had a smattering of real snow during the inaugural festival in 1983. It wasn’t the best timing. That was the year former “Today” show weatherman Willard Scott did a “live” broadcast during that         festival.

And a decade before that, in what has become known as the Great Snow of  ’73,  Macon was buried under a record 16.5 inches on Feb. 9-10, 1973.

We did get our token snowfall earlier this year when we had 1-2 inches on Jan. 22.  That amount probably wouldn’t impress our visitors from Minnesota, but the pink snow certainly did.

It was like being in a snow globe. The blossoms this year have been lovely. And they were punctual. Yes, the hue was on cue. 

We left the Fickling’s on Ingleside and followed the Yoshinos all the way out to Wesleyan Woods. The VIPs were mesmerized as we rode on the dreamy path along Guerry Drive, Oxford Road and Oxford  Circle.

As someone who writes for a living, words can never do justice to this neighborhood fairyland. I usually just step back and let the beauty speak for itself.

On Guerry Drive, I asked the bus driver to pause at the top of the hill so I could point out the former home of festival founder Carolyn Crayton. Pink petals were also floating to the ground along Oxford. They danced along the curbs and lawns.

Some folks say it makes them sad when the blossoms start making their way to the ground.

But when those pink snowflakes linger longer on the ground, it’s a way to hold on to the final days of the festival. 

Think of it as rolling out a pink carpet of memories.

Follow Ed Grisamore on The Melody’s social media this week as he takes in the festival. Also, be sure to visit us at our booth this weekend at the arts and crafts festival on Mulberry Street.