Pear blooms, chestnuts, french toast

In our nation's capital this week, hundreds of thousands of permanent residents, temporary officeholders and curious tourists are enjoying the annual display of cherry blossoms that, I'm told, take your breath away.

I've been to Washington, D.C., a few times, but never when the cherry trees are blooming, so I can't vouch for them firsthand. I can tell you that we once owned a house with a wooded yard that included several wild cherry trees. Those blossoms made us sneeze. If beauty is in the nose of the beholder, wild cherry blossoms are nothing to write home about.

And I can tell you that there once was a wild cherry tree next to the chicken house on the Killough Valley farm where I grew up in the Ozarks west of here. That tree eventually was transformed into an octagonal dining room table after my wife and I were married.

And that, folks, is about all I know about cherry trees or their blossoms.

Other displays of blossoms rightfully enjoy their own claims to fame.

Azaleas put on quite a show each spring along Turtle Creek in Dallas, where we lived for a couple of years and where we discovered the popularity of the blossoms along with several hundred thousand other gawkers who all showed up at precisely the same time, requiring the assistance of dozens of police officers to prevent a traffic meltdown.

And my wife and I were fortunate enough to be in Paris at the end of April last year when the chestnut trees were putting on quite a performance. Parisians use full-grown trees in landscaping much the way we plant daffodils and tulips.

By the way, there are no trash containers along the Champs Elysee where I spent the better part of a morning waiting for a ticket outlet to open. The cup of coffee I purchased at an underground McDonald's took off some of the chill as I strolled to kill time. But when the cup was empty, I couldn't get rid of it.

A solution presented itself when I came to an intersection marked by a bountiful display of blooming chestnuts whose falling blossoms carpeted the sidewalk. A city worker was sweeping up the pale-blue flowers -- a job, I decided then and there, would be perfect for a retired American living in Paris. Hey, I can dream. It seemed a shame to spoil a full trash bag of chestnut blossoms with an empty coffee cup, but the worker and I agreed there was no other option.

I thought of the cherry trees in Washington and the azaleas in Dallas and the chestnuts in Paris this week when Cape Girardeau's Bradford pear trees exploded into dazzling white clouds under the brilliant sunlight of a welcome spring.

Bradford pears bloom every year, but I can't remember when they have looked so magnificent. Is it because we had such a yucky winter? Is it because they blossoms are unblemished by late frost? Or is it because the pure-white pear blossoms contrast so starkly with events elsewhere that have grabbed hold of our minds and won't let go?

Speaking of which: Our friends in Paris -- the elegant woman on the bus who gave us a history lesson, the hotel concierge who made me practice my French before going to the train station to buy tickets to Versailles, the young ticket agent at the train station who acknowledged my halting French with a generous smile and perfect English, the baker who urged us to tear off a chunk of the still warm loaf of bread we were purchasing, the sales clerks at the gift shop who sang "Happy Birthday" to me when my wife purchased an early gift, and so many more -- would welcome us with open arms again this year at chestnut-blossom time. I'm sure.

It's still OK to eat french toast on Sunday mornings while your eyes feast on the pear blossoms. Really, it is.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.