Two seasons: winter and construction (1986); OT: photo

[Page Stephens]

I always say out in Cleveland, Ohio that when spring comes both the plants
and the orange barrels sprout.

For all I know this is original to me.

I have also heard people say that Cleveland has two seasons, July, August
and winter.

In terms of hard boiled eggs there is the phrase from "The Big Rock Candy
Mountain" which goes as follows:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Then there is the old hillbilly recitation which goes approximately as
follows:

I took my gal out to a fine restaurant and ordered her the most expensive
thing on the menu some sort of tongue.

She told me that she wouldn't eat anything which came from the an animal's
mouth so I told the waiter, "Give her two hard boiled eggs."

Page Stephens

----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:52 AM
Subject: Re: Two seasons: winter and construction (1986); OT: photo


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Two seasons: winter and construction (1986); OT: photo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Two seasons: winter and construction" is an obvious descendant of an
> older
> saying that probably antedates automobile roads, and for which I have a
> 1945
> citation:
>
> "In Vermont they had only two seasons: winter and August.  The fields were
> so
> rocky that Phil had to blast the boulders so he could plant potatoes; the
> cold was so intense that six months out of twelve, the hens laid
> hard-boiled
> eggs."
>
> from _The Wonderful Adventures of Paul Bunyan_ retold by Louis Untermeyer
> (New York: Heritage Press, 1945, no ISBN) page 40.
> (The Heritage Press published books in boxed hardbound editions for a book
> club called "The Heritage Club" to which my father belonged for many
> years.  It
> my be an imprint of the George Macy Companies, Inc)
>
>          - James A. Landau