July 10, 2000

Beginning of the Road

By Dane Sorensen

 

Is it just me or does anyone else get the feeling that the calendar is rigged. Here we are with July and summer half over and I can’t recall a faster moving summer. Here we have the longest days and yet I feel that time is moving in high gear. Yet I distinctly remember February dragging on and on like this year’s Presidential election! It is like some sinister plot to make my favorite season just up and disappear.

Even with the 4th of July, lasting from Saturday until Tuesday the fourth, I found the parade, park events and fireworks going by all too fast. What we need are instant replays during the summer day so that we can see what is happening in the more normal pace of what life is like in February.

Perhaps, it is the heat that effects how time flies. When it is 30 below time goes pretty slow, unless you are an arctic explorer. Most of us just shovel snow and go to work in February. Come July, when it is still light outside after work, there should be plenty of time to enjoy the sunny skies and the wild flowers. Yet all to often the long evening hours of light flash by faster than Bill Clinton’s agendas.

I admit I have been working overtime at the old Legion building that I have been remodeling. Now with the first floor finished and fully rented out, I hope to have some time to spend for myself. I must remind myself that I don’t need to put on painting clothes in July. I need to remind myself that I don’t need to haul another ton of old plaster or plumbing to the dump. Now is the time to haul myself out to the blueberry patches.

I sometimes wonder if it would not be worth trading some of the daylight we have in February for some of the night we have in July. When you think about it, having a few less hours in February of daylight would hardly make much difference to us. It is already dark when we get out of work. Only the wolves are free to enjoy the brief sunshine. Having the sun set in January or February at noon so we can have midnight sunsets would be a good deal.

Even now, as I write this column at 11 P.M, I would appreciate a sunny view out my home office window. With all the things to see and do in summer, it would be okay with me to keep it light from 5AM until midnight. I know the bats would be upset with a shorter summer night, but they can wear sunglasses.

All I know is that more summer daylight would be good for tourism and for me. Unfortunately, we can’t slow down the sun. Not even Al Gore can do that, though he probably has already taken credit for doing so. I guess it is just a matter of my taking the time to look at summer’s wonders and less at my own agenda. After all, I have all winter to shovel and work, because summer’s wonders stop for no one.

 

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