The Southwest Voice

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Everyone loves Spring. It's as if the earth comes alive again after a long, deep sleep. The hillsides change from ugly brown to a vibrant green. The bare branches of the trees burst with millions of tiny blossoms. Bees flit around, and even the animals begin exploring their surroundings.
Yes, it is a wonderful time, a radiant time and a time for lots of antihistamines. It's hard to comprehend how such magnificence can create so much misery. It begins with sneezing, a runny nose, and then our eyes getting puffy and watery. If we could look at the spectacle of spring without our allergies interfering we could truly enjoy this season of rejuvenation, instead of dreading its arrival.
In my father’s day it was called hay fever and he snorted and blew his nose for two months out of every year. Of course we already knew that certain grasses, flowers and blossoming trees made us sneeze and during springtime our eyes would water and get puffy, but scientists confirmed this fact for us and gave it a new name, ALLERGIES.
Even with all the unpleasant side effects we still love spring and think of it as the most beautiful time of the year. It’s like a new beginning. We have left the cold, nasty winter behind us and now look forward to and light breezy days and warm sunshine.
Certainly the few months of spring are rough on allergy sufferers, but our drug manufacturers have come up with all sorts of products to help us get through this difficult time. We have twelve hour pills, four hours tablets, twenty-four hour capsules, and inhalers. You name it and they have it on the drug store shelves. They all promise instant relief from your symptoms. They help, that's for sure, but nothing is going to cure your allergies except the arrival of summer. So fellow allergy prone friends, hang in there and try to enjoy this delightful time of the year. Summer will be here soon enough, and then we will be wishing we were still sneezing.