Tales From Exit 22 by Al Batt

It was a robin sweater.

It was so hot, even the robins were sweating.

That’s summer for you.

A neighbor raised summer cows.

Whenever anyone asked him what summer cows were, he’d smile and answer, “Some are black and some are brown.”

Summers can get hot even for those of us who live where the winters are severely cold. Our winters are so cold that countless people wish and pray for warm weather. The wishes and prayers are answered. We get warm weather in the summer. If enough winter folks request warmer weather, we get hot temperatures. That’s OK. Snowmer is not a good thing.

Summer is a season of sweat. If something smells funny, it’s probably you.

English novelist Jane Austen was very descriptive in her writing about the heat of summer, “What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”

Russell Baker wrote, “Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”

If it gets too hot, maybe you should go topless.

Dr. Seuss said, “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

During the summer, the northern hemisphere receives the most direct sunlight because the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun. On the summer solstice, the sun’s rays are located directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, a line of latitude located at 23.5 degrees north of the equator.

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. The summer solstice is the tallest day of the year.

The 2001-2010 decade was officially proclaimed as the warmest decade globally since the start of modern measurements in 1850, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

June brings summer, sometimes kicking and scratching. June has always inspired writers.

Bern Williams said, “If a June night could talk, it would probably boast that it invented romance.”

Al Bernstein wrote, “Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.”

Nathaniel Parker Willis said, “It is the month of June. The month of leaves and roses. When pleasant sights salute the eyes. And pleasant scents the noses.”

Back when it was hot enough to turn a glacier into a steam bath and I was as sharp as butter on a hot day, summer was when the boyhood me started taking notes for my “How I spent my summer vacation” essay for school. Summers were typically hot enough for me to cook in my own juices.

When summer wraps its warmth around us, the garden produces delights. We become children of the corn on the cob. We plant too much zucchini and are forced to harvest it every hour on the hour. We try to pay our dentist bill with zucchini. Singer Guy Clark wrote a song called “Homegrown Tomatoes” that went like this, “There’s only two things that money can’t buy. And that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

Guy Clark must never have gone to a farmers market. Homegrown tomatoes can be purchased there.

In the novel, “The Great Gatsby,” author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote this about summer, “The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.”

If Fitzgerald were still among the living, he might write “The Great Gnatsby.” Insects are everywhere in the summer. Bikers gag on them. What has four legs and flies? The dinner table. Butterflies flutter by. The mosquitoes suck the tans out of people. Skeeters are difficult to train not to bite. After one particularly memorable mosquito bite, I needed stitches.

We sit outside and eat. Summer is the time of the year when the days are longer but go by faster. It’s the time when everything wants to become sticky paper.

If you get tired of looking at a lawn that needs mowing, well, that’s what window blinds and curtains are for.

Summer is when many of us discover that those wind turbines don’t provide much air conditioning.

Summer is when just thinking about winter gives you an ice cream headache.

In a world filled with uncertainty, we can be certain that summer will be warmer than winter.

Remember when I suggested that you should go topless? Maybe you should forget about doing that.

It’s a good idea to wear a hat under the hot sun.

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.