Stirrings

 It hit 56 degrees here in the Fort yesterday, and the snow is down to a few stubborn piles where the plows have run. So I guess this is as good a time as any to bring up the S-word.

That word would be "spring", of course.

Oh, it's not close to being here yet -- Elvis not only is not yet in the building, the building is not yet in the building -- but for awhile yesterday the sun on your face didn't feel quite so winter-sterile. And every so often, you caught, perhaps not a whiff, but at least the memory of a whiff of living things in the air.

The world is still deeply asleep in this precinct, and next week February will likely break our hearts again in its usual jerkwater February way. But for one day, or part of the day, there were stirrings. For one day, or part of a day, we got to pretend February wasn't the SOB it usually is.

Also, something happened over the weekend down in Winston-Salem, N.C.

What happened, at an ancient historical site known as Bowman Gray Stadium, was a bunch of muscled-up rolling billboards went rumbling and blaring around Bowman Gray's well-worn quarter-mile of asphalt.

The Clash, NASCAR's annual preseason kickoff event, happened Sunday night, which means Daytona is right around the corner, and that means -- along with pitchers and catchers reporting -- winter doesn't have much left on the clock. The Clash used to be run at Daytona, which made it even more of a kickoff event. But last year NASCAR ran it in the Coliseum in L.A., and last weekend it landed at Bowman Gray as a tip of the cap to its mostly dead past.

Bowman Gray, see, played host to a regular NASCAR soiree from 1958 to 1971, before Winston brought the big money to the series and launched it on its current trajectory. Put simply, it outgrew quaint little places like Bowman Gray. Just like the NFL outgrew, say, Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, War Memorial in Buffalo and the Pontiac Silverdome, all  merely memories now.

So this was a sweet dip into nostalgia, NASCAR returning to Bowman Gray for one night. Chase Elliott won -- which, unlike when it ran at Daytona a week before the 500, offered no hint about how he'll run on Daytona's 2.5 miles and 31-degree banking. 

No matter. The point is, if the stock cars are running again, maybe 56 degrees in early February in northeast Indiana wasn't quite the outlier it seemed. 

A body can imagine so, anyway.