The vernal equinox might have just passed, but every time I go outside, winter reminds me that it’s decided to linger. Have one for the road. Take another turn around the block.

Then again, we’ve seen a few robins. The croci are emerging. In the evening, Onion is way off to the southwest. All the usual signs of spring are here. So time for a kind of spring break. Back to posting Easter Monday, which is April 2 this year.

Till then, a few items.

Without looking for it — the only way to find many things — I came across this picture the other day.

That’s Mike and Steve Johnson, in a picture I took at a wedding of a mutual friend of ours on July 6, 1996. Mike died in 2016. I’m sorry to report that his twin brother Steve died earlier this year.

Recently I finished Apollo 8, subtitled “The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon,” by Jeffrey Kluger (2017). Thrilling indeed. Covers much of the same ground — rather, space — as the Apollo 8 chapter of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, though naturally in more detail.

The author characterizes the mission as the most “audacious” decision NASA ever made, and I’ll go along with that. Reading about any of the Apollo voyages, but especially this one, gives you (or should give you) a sense of just how dangerous it all was. Worth the risk, of course, but I’m surprised none of the Apollo astronauts bought it on the Moon, or in space, as opposed to the awful fate of the Apollo 1 crew.

A footnote: all of the Apollo 8 crew are still alive. Frank Borman just turned 90, James Lovell will turn 90 next Sunday, and Bill Anders is the youngest at 84. None of the other full Apollo crews are alive, though for now there’s at least one left from each mission except Apollo 14.

About 20 years ago, I saw Lovell speak at a real estate conference. I don’t remember much about what he said, other than to praise the movie Apollo 13, but it was a kick to see him anyway.

Recently we saw Vertigo at the theater. Been a long time since I last saw it, more than 30 years. These days, it gets high critical praise. Perhaps, I thought, I’d admire it more with a few more decades behind me, since I remember not being overly impressed by it as a young man.

It’s certainly a remarkable movie, interesting in a lot of ways. But it didn’t speak to me any more now than it did before. Maybe the story’s serious implausibilities got in the way. Not sure I can quite put my finger on it. A good movie, maybe a great one, but best? Naah.