To the editor:

What a thrill it is to have retired to Lawrence!

Lawrence is so special, adorned in spring blossoms or fall foliage. I wonder if those of you who have always lived here appreciate what a lovely city it is?

This time of year, we all appreciate and share in the foresight, the time and the effort the city and the townspeople have spent to produce such a beautiful place in which to live. Nothing shows pride and care and concern for others like giving the gift of beauty.

Massachusetts Street downtown is vivid and colorful with planters lining the sidewalks filled with clumps of yellow jonquils, red tulips and purple hyacinths. Flowering trees and bushes and flowers and bulbs fill the parks, the curbs and the medians of Clinton Parkway and Bob Billings Parkway and along Inverness Street in my end of town.

I love to take meandering routes through the streets in Old Lawrence, drive on Ninth Street and along Monterey Way and all around Lawrence to enjoy the blooms and blossoming bushes and trees and flowers in the yards and malls and parks.

In fall, I will enjoy the wonderful change of colors of leaves and foliage and flowers again.

What a joy it is to live in Lawrence.

Thank you, Lawrence, and the people who live here and make it beautiful for all of us to enjoy.

Barbara Nordling,

Lawrence