Welcome to Summer

Today kicks off a season that meant a lot more in the days before year-round school, summer internships, and making up every snow day. I remember the run up to the end of school and the fluttering of lightning bugs in my stomach as I looked out the window. Summer seemed to stretch out as an endless series of possibilities. Maybe some of you went to summer camp or your parents had a summer house somewhere near the beach – or maybe you played the Cruel Summer role and stayed home while everyone else went away. Summer was an event, even in the life of a kid summer stood as a sign that the great wheel of the year was slow turning.

I have a vague memory of canoeing at Chain of Lakes state park. I must have been seven or eight, all I remember is seeing lily pads for the first time and the fields of aquatic weeds wafting in the current just below the surface. It seems like there was some falling in the water, but I’m not sure. Early in my childhood we frequented state parks and would spend a week at a time baking on the beach or fishing. I brought back a lot of memories; the ones that are most vivid are the mosquito bites, poison ivy, sunburn, and raccoon raids on our supply of Hostess snack cakes. There were good times too: hikes, thunderstorms rolling across the lake, fishing with my grandfather and listening to his stories, riding bicycles faster than seemed humanly possible down the rolling hills of southern Indiana (and winding up with skinned knees), and lying in a canvas tent listening to katydids scratching their summer love songs to the night.

I hope you’ve got plans to make better memories than these this summer and that those memories won’t simply be the periodic table. Everything school can teach you is written in a book, but learning how to tie a clench-knot from your dad or that your old grandpa was a little bit of a hell-raiser in his youth can only be learned one way and during such a small window of time. Go out and roast a weenie, make s’mores, and tell a tale or two around the camp fire.  Have a happy summer, the kind that will stay with you long enough that you’ll tell your grandchildren about it.