Summer in these parts is spectacular. There’s no other word for it. Living in a place with a challenging climate like
northern Maine’s, one tends to gain an appreciation for weather that doesn’t
try to kill you and wreck your stuff.
Yes, we do get some nasty thunderstorms and the occasional stifling hot stretch
in the summertime, but that’s pretty easy to deal with when compared to the
prospect of clearing two feet of wet heavy snow from your roof or bundling up
against temperatures of 20 below zero.
When people around here complain about a hot day in the summer, a
frequent retort from my fellow winter-loathers is “At least you don’t have to
shovel the heat.”
But for me, it’s not just the summer weather that appeals,
but the summer attitude. It’s
that feel in the air that starts on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend and ends
abruptly the day after Labor Day. You
might describe it as the equivalent of the first time each year when you open
the windows in the house and let the fresh air in.
There is a feeling of freedom in the air. College students are home for the summer.
School kids are on a long break. Adults are taking time off from work. People around town are towing boats to the
lake, tending gardens, taking leisurely walks, grilling burgers, and fishing in
the river. Even if you are working or
taking summer classes, it just feels different during the summer months. It’s almost as if a collective weight on our
shoulders, if not entirely lifted, has been lightened.
Many new faces appear in our lives in the summer. People who have long since moved away come
back to visit. It’s not unusual to be
picking up a few things at the grocery store in the summer and run into a high
school classmate you haven’t seen since senior English class over a quarter
century ago. Tourists without specific
roots in the community pass through, seeing with new perspectives the things that we locals often
take for granted. For
visitors, that statue in the park that we barely give a second glance on our
way to work each day becomes the focus of discussion and photographs. The “wallpaper” of our lives becomes a vivid
portrait to someone else.
Places and things that are shuttered during the cold weather
months open for business again. The
dairy bar, the golf course, the community band, the farmer’s markets…they all
set forth pleasant new opportunities for locals and visitors alike to enjoy the
unique pleasures of where we live.
Roadside stands are unboarded, and go from selling just fiddleheads
around Memorial Day to strawberries and cut flowers around the 4th
of July, to a vast selection of fruits and vegetables by Labor Day. And many of these stands still go by the honor
system. Signs next to a small container simply
state the prices of items and ask that the customer put the money in the box.
Special events allow us all to mingle and relax. Agricultural fairs, festivals, parades,
concerts, church suppers and picnics, and numerous other opportunities present
themselves almost every weekend. Few if
any of these are of the caliber to be featured on the Travel Channel. Heck, most don’t even merit a mention on the
Maine Tourism Board’s website, yet we turn out for them in droves anyway. After all, how many chances does a person get
to have a piece of the world’s largest ploye?
We are fed, entertained, and most importantly I think, have some quality
time with our family, friends, neighbors and visitors.
The summer attitude is even reflected in the clothing we
wear. Loud Hawaiian shirts and fluorescent
yellow flip-flops don’t even generate a second glance in the summer months. An older
woman wearing a huge floppy hat and bright blue sundress with smiling dolphins
on it doesn’t turn a head. A middle-aged man in plaid shorts and a striped shirt?
Meh. It’s summertime. Who cares? Kids wear only a bathing suit (usually
the same one) for days in a row, shirtless teenagers skateboard in the park, and
even business types go without a tie from time to time. I actually saw my perennially conservative
and buttoned-down boss wear khaki shorts to work one especially humid
Saturday. As for me, I take great
pleasure at this time of year in going as many consecutive days as I can
without wearing socks. Fashion becomes
relative between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
This is the time of year we live for around here. It’s this time of year that keeps us going
when there’s a driving blizzard in January and we have to shovel out the
driveway in dawn darkness just to get to work.
The whole time we are enjoying summer however, we watch the
pages on the calendar falling away out of the corners of our eyes. Memorial Day
is followed in short order by June, which leads to July, and then August. The next thing we know, Labor Day Weekend is
here. You can feel it coming before
September even starts. Fewer and fewer
vacationers and other visitors are around.
More and more camps at the lake are closed up. School-aged kids are sent to bed earlier to
get in the groove for the daily routine soon to come with the start of another
academic year. College kids pack up their
stuff and head back to their studies.
Nature lets you know that Labor Day and all it implies is on the way too. First you take the air conditioner out of the
window, then you stop using a fan in the window, and sometimes you are even
sleeping through the night with the windows closed by the beginning of
September. The lushness of our
surroundings is paler, less vivid. Brown
is slowly creeping in to replace the greenery.
Some leaves have even started to fall, and quite a few flowers and
seasonal plants have “gone by” as my grandmother used to say.
The day after Labor Day, which is when I am writing this, can
be sobering. Yes, the calendar still
says it is summer, and the thermometer outside my office reads 72 degrees, but
it’s not summer anymore. Not
really. Vacations are over and the
visitors have gone home. We are back at
work, back at school. The special events have been held. It’s time to dress more practically. Noses to the grindstone people, there’s
serious business to attend to now!
*sigh*
Just 262 days until Memorial Day Weekend, 2013.
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