Norman, M, and E.E.

Norman Friedman started Spring.  M now is the editor of Spring.  E.E. Cummings wrote this ever-lifting poem about Spring:

in Just-
spring      when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles      far      and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far        and        wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
     the

         goat-footed

balloonMan    whistles
far
and
wee 

(Complete Poems 27)                  

We still have, in our neighborhood, an ice cream truck that comes around.  The ice cream man who dishes out our ice cream cones is almost always happy-looking and humming to the tune from his little truck.  Or else we are so glad to see him again after the long winter, we see him happy and humming.  E.E. must have had a balloon vendor come around each spring to his boyhood neighborhood of Cambridge Massachusetts.

Norman Friedman has given friends and friends of poetry exceedingly many treats:  thankstohim.