(From today's TIMES and NEWS-STAR)
I
asked her how her summer went.
“What
summer?” she said.
Time,
especially summertime, can really get away from you.
It
reminds me of the two snails who were driving their snail cars and got in a
wreck, and the policeman snail asked a bystander snail what he saw.
“Well,” the pedestrian snail said, kneading his hands, looking blank-eyed toward the intersection, “I mean, I don’t know. I’m not sure officer. It all just … it happened so fast.”
(begin
ital.) Zoom zoom…(end ital.)
One
minute it’s Memorial Day, the next it’s watermelon for the Fourth of July, and
suddenly you’re at Office Depot buying notebooks and loose leaf.
Summer,
or hot flashes?
Where
DID the summer go?
It
went to cheer camp, spirit sticks and sports bras. I am the step-father of a
16-year-old cheerleader these days and have been forced to pay attention to
such things. The other day we had to buy a cammo T-shirt for a pep rally and
right there by the T-shirt rack in the mall, I practically made her try the
“Youth Large” on over her other clothes, which she was “sure would fit,” but I
was afraid (terrified!) would be too tight. It wasn’t. In her opinion. (Should
have gotten the Youth XL but don’t get me started.)
Summer
went to Little League, to sunflower seeds, to trips to the concession stand and
to the emergency room. One of my young friends, a high school senior now,
stepped on what he thought was a sharp shell in the ocean. Two weeks and a
baseball tournament later, he finally went to the doctor. Stingray barbs in his
foot. He’d stepped on a stingray, doing stingray things down there in the sand.
Seriously, what are the odds? The doctor dug the barbs out, my young friend was
on crutches for two weeks, and he’s still counting his blessings. I don’t know
what happened to the stingray, but you know how they are. No card. No call.
Speaking
of baseball and boys, part of the summer was swallowed up in a trip to see the
Texas Rangers. Four grownups and 15 high school boys. We hit the truck stop at
Highway 271 (the one with marble sinks in the bathroom!), caught Happy Hour at
Sonic by the Ballpark in Arlington, watched the game in temperatures that can
only be described as Equator Hot, then church bussed home. I don’t do trips
that end at 4 a.m. as well as I used to. Where did the stamina go?
Summer
went to a trip to the Redneck Riviera, where cutoff jeans are the poor man’s
board shorts. Summer went to homemade ice cream in a folding chair by the RV
and in a folding chair in the church’s fellowship hall. It went to sunburn and
suntan and skeeter bites and fireflies.
Summer
went to bare feet and sundresses and late-night milkshake runs, to books you stayed
up late reading and movies you stayed up late watching, something you felt you
could do and not be tired the next morning, since the sun stayed up late too. (Wrong!)
Summer
went to torpedoed wasps nests (“Everybody go inside while I spray this stuff!”),
discussions of heat and humidity and rain, regret over lists of neglected summertime
to-do lists, and arguments about the upcoming football season.
Which
is here. And will be gone before we know it. Because, I guess, that’s the way
time is. I mean, I don’t know, time just…it happens so fast.
-30-
