The calendar says there are four weeks left to summer but the rituals and customs of life say summer is closing.
We picked our boy up from camp this past Sunday – big embraces, long looks to note the growth and scrapes and wisdoms picked up through new experiences. First time having one of the wee ones out of the nest. Two weeks, at that. All to the good, the camp was awesome and the reports back all positive. He looks great, if not a bit older, bigger. It is a start of a process, which will be as hard as it is rewarding. A passage like a season, but with more sting.
It is time to pick up supplies and clothes to make both kids shiny and presentable for the first day of school. Talking with school age children in town is all about which teacher and what grade and who is in who’s class. Good thing about it is landing a good teacher is like looking for weeds in a garden. Easy. Schools are all shined up too.
Fall gardens are starting and summer crops are mostly done. If the weather holds we will have arugula and other greens for more than a month. Trucks full of firewood and heating oil are starting to hog our roads. And thankfully summer road projects are winding down. Traffic control workers on construction sites – the most bored people in America – will soon hang up the yellow vest and lean the stop/slow sign against the work shed.
In Vermont we have the odd experience of a political primary in August, which is like hosting a football championship in July. It’s hard enough to care about politics in September – it’s just not right to care about an election in August. Another sign summer is done.
I voted early and am glad (at least for me) the election is over. First, it will be good to know the main contenders in the fall madness. Second, I will not miss the dozens of e-mails a day from people pretending to be writing to me but really just sending out virus-mail to advertise candidates. I miss bumper-stickers. Finally, I am looking forward to the end of lawn signs for a while. We can’t make them illegal but candidates could agree not to plant them. The candidates should hold a summit and agree to pull the signs: they are ugly, ineffective and annoying.
I am not going to predict winners. In a way I don’t care who wins, either the primary or the general election in November; I only care what they do. As we head into fall I hope we get sense and reason, not bile and edge-issues, from whomever wins. Wouldn’t it be great to have the vicious politics of the past ten years fall away with the leaves? The problems we face can’t be managed to advantage for a candidate or party – they need to be managed for positive results for the nation.
Fortunately, we’ve had more important – or at least more interesting – things to focus on this summer than who will take the reins and try to get us out of the fiscal, policy and economic mess we are in. Summer here is marked by events, as it is probably in most towns, and from the antique car show to the balloon-fest to the music festival the town has moved seamlessly from one crowd of enthusiasts to another.
The balloon people come first and this year the weather cooperated. We did not have a dawn landing on our barn, but we did see the sight and grace of hot-air balloons drifting across the sky.
The antique car people walk through town with pride while their prize cars form a line up and down town. Nothing makes me want a 1936 Packard Convertible Coupe more than seeing a mint condition forest green model parked, top down, on a crystal clear summer day. (Okay, I honestly don’t know whether it was a 1936. Or a Packard. I think it was a coupe and am pretty sure that color is forest green. It was a convertible. It’s interesting how we all claim more knowledge about cars when people who really know drive them into town.) There is the Lamoille County Field Days -- rusted carnival rides, terrific livestock competitions, tractor and ox pulls and barrel racing. All washed down with greasy food and milk. We have too a summer music festival. Ravello look out.
Summer is not all closed down. A month or more of baseball; the chance to sneak away to the beach on warm September days; more gardening at least if the weather holds and chances for long weekend bike rides and hikes. But the big markers are behind us and the early signs of fall are in front.
I’ll be splitting and stacking firewood, breaking out the alarm clock and polishing the kids up for first day of school. Not a bad way to mark the passage of a season.
David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2010 David Rocchio
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