Best Use of a Brick

I think it's spring, but I'm not sure. The calendar says it is. Here in Seattle, sunshine is a rare and welcome visitor, even at this time of year. If only there was some concrete way of knowing for sure--daily sunshine, perhaps?--or a maybe brick, like the one in West Danville, Vermont.

Those Vermonters figured out a way to entertain themselves in the dark of winter and find out for sure when that dark winter is officially over. They tie a 65-pound cinder block to a wooden pallet, place the pallet on the frozen surface of Joe's Pond, and bet $1 to guess when it will fall through. More than 12,000 people made bets this year, demonstrating our human need for definitive answers--and proving that people will bet on anything, especially in the dead of winter.

It fell through at 5:25 PM on April 25th this year. Hooray! It's spring in West Danville, Vermont. Now, if I can just figure out if the Seattle sky is a brighter gray a little longer each day... but that would just be deductive reasoning. A brick falling through ice--now that's concrete proof!