Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday and Sunday.

I don’t compare it to a summer’s day, but Al is an easy name to pronounce.

It’s easy to write, too. If I’m tired, I could abbreviate it. L.

I taught some writing classes recently. I had 30 different classrooms with an average of around 28 in each class. That means I dealt with 840 names. Not all of them wore nametags. I tried to learn the names. The problem was that I mispronounced many of them.

I know that it’s not easy naming a child. You have to take into account what the name rhymes with. What the initials will spell. What relative shares the name. You probably want it to be a rich one. And the name should sound good when it follows “president.”

I asked the students to say their names. They were lovely and thought-provoking monikers. The problem is that names and faces don’t always stay together.

There are no rules to the pronunciation of names. There are names that I couldn’t pronounce even if I could pronounce them. If I were a clergyman I’d be saying, “I now pronounce you incorrectly.”

Summer has other names.

It’s sommer in Norway, Denmark and Germany. It’s sommar in Sweden. The Spanish word is verano, Welsh is haf, Czech is leto, Vietnamese is mua he and Gaelic is tsamhraidh.

The canopies of the hardwoods close, forming a passage for spring to summer. Green rows of crops add stripes to the dark fields.

Summer is filled with weather sayings. Here are a few. When there are many lightning bugs in June, expect a hot summer. Where lightning strikes, dig your well. Wear your suspenders twisted during a storm and the lightning will never strike you. Never trust a July sky.

It had been as dry as a church picnic. Then it rained enough that an umbrella did no good, but a boat might have proven helpful. It rained so hard, the concrete became soggy. The rain ended and it was boiling. I’m not sure if it was the heat or the humidity, but it wasn’t long before my goose was cooked. It was hotter than doughnut grease. I was sweating so much, I had to tread water inside my clothes. I know that many allergy sufferers wish for rain in the hopes it will wash away the pollens and molds that stuff up their nasal passages. A friend doesn’t like thunderstorms. They can cause labored breathing for those with allergies and asthma. He told me that he suffers from thunderstorm asthma. As they say in the medical trade, “Bummer, dude.” Scientists hypothesize that the winds of thunderstorms create updrafts that lift pollen and mold particles from the ground. The rain batters the particles into smaller pieces. A downdraft spreads those tiny bits into the air. Some think that the electrical charge of the storm makes the particles more likely to stick in the lungs when inhaled.

Summer is when we try to get a tan from the light of lightning bugs. In Japan, fireflies symbolize both love and war. Their lights were once considered to be the souls of dead soldiers. I see fireflies at other times, but I think of them as a Fourth of July fireworks.

Summer is when, no matter how tall you are, the spider webs are always at face level when you walk into them.

Summer is when we keep creepy company while learning that there is life on other plants. The garden is a real slugfest and horseflies are big enough to wear horseshoes.

When I was a boy and could entertain myself for hours with a fly swatter, summer was filled with far more hope than reality.

Summer was the season of scratches and rashes, and we never used “summer” as a verb. We might have become sunburned, but we never peeled. Our skin had no better place to go. We didn’t have air conditioning in the house or car. We used underarm deodorants instead. Summer offered hot and muggy days that made me want to move into the refrigerator. We never needed to get back to nature. We had never separated. If a visitor from the big city wanted to get in touch with nature, we opened the windows of the guest bedroom and took the screens off.

I love the sounds of summer as much as, if not more than the weather. William Carlos Williams wrote, “In summer, the song sings itself.”

I wish for the same thing each summer. It’s that my tornado watch doesn’t blow away.