End of Summer

Summer is ending and I can’t say I’m sad to see it go. This year has been beastly hot, muggy, and downright uncomfort-able.


I managed to get away several times to cooler climes, and maybe that’s my problem with the heat, that and air conditioning. In June Vermont was warm, but not like August in Chicago. In Port Townsend, Washington, in July, it rained most days and was kind of clammy, but not unbearable. Last month in Klamath Falls, Oregon, we found the weather wonderful: warm during the day, cool in the evening, dry all the time, even, somehow, the day it rained.

When I was a kid we didn’t have air conditioning and we never knew the difference. If we shopped, department stores had the kind of frigid air that we don’t find much any more except that escaping from the occasional store in the Loop. We could go to the movies and find cool air, a respite from the heat. In Albuquerque, where I lived when I was a kid in the Fifties, we opened windows at night and slept comfortably, a mile high.

When I was in high school in Decatur, IL, my dad eventually installed a window unit in the living-dining room. I don’t know why he didn’t put it in the bedroom. Maybe it’s because before he bought it, he slept on the floor in front of the open front door, and he continued to sleep there because my mother was always cold.

Each fall he removed the unit from the window. The house was built into the side of a hill so that the front perched above the garage. He’d ask my mother to hold the unit from the inside while he fiddled around on an extension ladder on the outside. Invariably she’d let go to scratch her nose or light a cigarette, and the air conditioner tumbled out the window while he flailed to catch it. It would bounce, and thankfully he always held on to the ladder. It was only an air conditioner, but he’d get really angry. She’d get the giggles.

He had a similar reaction when my sister and I were small and one of us, probably her, shoved a toothbrush into the drain in the bathroom sink. Taking the trap off is not a huge chore. Fishing the clog out isn’t either, generally. My mother, who was not a stupid woman, managed to enliven things when my dad shone a flashlight up the drain pipe into the sink to see if it were clear. She took the easy way out and just turned on the faucets. I don’t know whether the water in his nose, eyes and mouth infuriated him more than banging his head on the pipes under the sink did, but in any event he was angry. Very angry.

Perhaps the fact that he never swore exacerbated the situation. He had no outlet to express his fury. Certainly the fact that she got the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing didn’t help.

They remained married until he died several years ago. I think they accumulated 57 years together. He had a lot more patience than most people I know.

But back to summer. Officially it ends in a couple of weeks. Most people consider Labor Day its close. They have jobs or go to school. I am still wearing shorts, sandals and tee shirts (no one my age or size should dress himself this way), and I probably will until it snows. I think I don’t really enjoy the encumbrance of clothes. My former daughter in law never popped in unannounced for fear of the state in which she would find me.

I’m looking forward to fall. I like the colors in the trees, the cooler weather. I enjoy winter, too. Somehow I’d much rather take the dogs to the dog park at two below than at ninety plus with a lot of humidity.

Another benefit of the end of summer is that the beaches at the Indiana Dunes state and national parks relax their prohibition on pets. I love Lake Michigan. I love to sit on the beach and listen to the waves lap on the shore, to watch the dogs race around, then scoot to the edge of the water and try to bite the little whitecaps as they roll in. I like to watch the gulls wheel in the air and then skitter down the beach as they dig for whatever it is they dig for. When the lake is calm, I skip stones across the water. And in early fall the water is warm enough to still swim in – without crowds of people.

We took the dogs to the dunes this week, and we plan to go back next week. That's Stella and Brando in the photo at the top of this essay. We took them in March, the day we got back from South America. We boarded them for eighteen days and they needed a run, as you can see.

Have a nice end of summer. Enjoy the fall. And be sure to comment below.