Whan That Aprille Cross Stitch Kit

At Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, my beloved junior-year English teacher, Mr. Don Rehkopf, had us memorize the first eighteen lines of “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I still feel compelled to recite them out loud to anyone who will listen every spring. This is how it starts: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the flour. — Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1387-1400 Did you memorize this, too? I took a survey of basically every single person in my phone a few months ago and said, "Do you know what 'What That Aprille' means?" All the English majors knew and almost to a person they, too, say it out loud every spring! (My high-school friend Maggie and her husband Dave both know it so they recite it in tandem to their college-aged children. HA!) Literally no one who wasn't an English major did (except for Andy, beca