By MARYANN MARINO

Spring ‑ it means different things to different people. To some, it's one of those prized possessions they have in their mattress‑one of those things which they couldn't live without. After all, some people do live in bed. This also manages to keep them bouncing from March until June, some never stopping if they manage to get up on the wrong side of the bed.

To others, it is a pleasant little flip (their lids probably) and a not so pleasant little prayer that they do not break a leg and land safely on two feet again. It usually works, unless, of course, you manage to start off on the wrong foot.

Still, there are some of us who are sensible, sane individuals. (You could have fooled me.) We know spring as a combination of many things, - hay-fever, never-ending colds, reseeding the lawns, and finding aching joints you never knew you had when you triumphantly kill yourself working out in your own back yard, hoping to get in shape to play baseball, etc., and to build up your resistance so you can break it down again by skinning knees and elbows, and spraining ankles.

Some of us use this as a time for mating dogs, birds, chimpanzees, you name it. Even the great white hunter changes his game. If you feel a little tingle in a tender spot, you know that Cupid has made his point, and if you haven't yet, you'll get it eventually.

Spring fever is a very strange "dis‑ease" to many people. Once they get a sudden attack of it, they never get over it. As the years go by, they really get to be fanatics about it, and that's probably why Gene Kelly went skipping down the street singing in the rain. If he were passing by at the time of the horse and buggy, he would have gotten a real kick out of it; and if he were still going by the fourth of July, he would have had a blast.

Spring. Wonderful, fabulous, beautiful, marvelous (isn't this stupid) fantastically fatal spring. It is really a gas‑which will probably be the solution to your problem once you've read this, and I for one wouldn't blame you one bit.