Fittingly after Groundhog Day, Paly saw a representation of the coming of spring in the quad Thursday.
Staff member Ronald Brown rode through the quad on the back of a Suzuki-turned dune buggy, dancing to the Beach Boys with fellow staff members Nancy Green and Habiba Naqvi.
“We decided to celebrate the coming of spring,” Brown said. “It was a modern California interpretation of Pan and the two wood nymphs.”
According to Brown, the celebration was based on e.e. cummings’ “Chansons Innocentes, I,” which describes Pagan god of shepherds and flocks “Pan” bringing spring to the world. Pan, referred to as an “old balloonman” and accompanied by two women, Betty and Diesbel, frees the world of gloomy weather.
“It [the reenactment] was everything I hoped it would be,” Brown said. “It was a celebration of life and a celebration of Californian mystique.”
To read the poem yourself, go to <http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07040173>.