Most what I’m going to tell you this time we talked about last year, because it’s happening again. I hate this, but it’s time to tuck another summer away. Sunrise, sunset. To everything there is a season. And this is the season when Summer falls asleep. The long, laughing, lazy, crazy, hazy days at the beach, the nights full of soft lovers voices under the boardwalk…Saturdays in the park, itsy, bitsy, teeny, yellow polka dot bikinis, roller coasters, Italian ice cups, baseball, the sound of crickets, and lawn sprinklers…you can feel them all slipping away…into fall.
Time to tuck away the fireworks, hang up the hammock, and take one more turn around the grass on the lawn tractor. And for my Lady Wonder Wench and me, time to wrap the cape around this Summer’s memories. The ones that started in March with Met’s Spring Training. We’re taking our end of the summer trip up to old Cape Cod this week. I love the ocean…when it’s gentle…or even when it gets a little frisky. I can hear it in my head, even in the winter.
But I think there’s going to be a problem on the beach this year. I can’t pack my old Speedo swimming trunks that I’ve worn ever since I was a competitive swimmer back in college…a long, long time ago…even though it pretty much still fit me the last time I saw it…because my Lady Wonder Wench confessed last December that she did indeed dispose of it behind my back…or actually while my backside was turned. So I will be wearing that godawful thing she bought me that she calls, “Your new trunks.” I feel that trunks are for elephants and Mafia cars. She disagrees. And she’s wearing that…wife look. You know the one that says something along the lines of, “I had a nightmare last night that you and George Clooney were fighting over me, and you won.” I knew this was going to happen ever since this time two years ago, while I was striding down the beach in my Speedo. I told you… she didn’t want to walk with me, and I distinctly heard her tell her friend Carine, that I was making it obvious that all men are not created equal. I took that as a compliment at the time. But…maybe not.
I used to go walking in the sand like I owned the beach when I was a Coney Island life guard, a long, long, long time ago. Can’t do that since I had a knee replacement. It WAS a long time ago…when girls first started wearing bikinis. I wasn’t used to that. I sometimes walked down the beach for hours and never saw a girl’s face. I took it as my civic duty all those years ago, to stride down the beach at least twice a day to let the girls see me. Us Louie-Louie Generation guys have been around for a long time. So have our Louie-Louie ladies. And we like that. Most of the time. There’s a story about watching the seasons spin around together in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd, and in the current podcast. It’s called “For The Long Run.”
I like that I know exactly the place on my shoulder where her head rests at night. I like that I can recognize her perfume. I like that when she has a bad dream, I can make it go away by just holding her hand…she smiles in her sleep when I do that. I like that she feels safe with me…she has done me the honor of allowing me to protect her for a long time.
“For The Long Run” is from the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.
Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.
1- Why did my friend Bob’s license plate request get turned down?
2- What’s the real reason homing pigeons can’t navigate with a magnet attached to their necks ?
3- What keeps women in Ontario from going topless ?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
To everything there is a season. Sunrise, sunset. My Lady Wonder Wench and I are New York Mets fans…for our sins. And our summer begins in late March, when we go to Florida to catch some Spring Training. I like that word…spring. I think they gave it that name so you could start listening for it in the middle of the night in March. Haven’t you ever listened carefully and heard little green stuff popping out of the snow ? That means Spring is coming.
I know there’s a soggy, sweaty, stinky side to Summer. But Summer is my season. I love it. But it’s time. Sunrise, sunset. It’s time to tuck another summer away. To everything there is a season. My Lady Wonder Wench and I will be away for a couple of weeks. I’m not taking a computer, because a vacation is a vacation. So there won’t be a blog or podcast for a couple of weeks either. I hate to tuck this summer away…but I’m pretty sure that if I listen closely enough next March…in the middle of the night when everything else is quiet…I’ll hear that little green stuff popping up.
I know this Summer has to fall asleep. Because…sunrise, sunset… that’s the only way there can be another spring.
Thanks, Dick… that is great!
I feel a little like a prisoner. The people who dont live in the North can frolic all winter and never feel the sting of wet gloves on arthritic hands after shoveling snow. Its like we are punished for a crime we must have committed in a previous life, we are teased by the spring and summer and then back to our cell for the next six dismal grey months. Yes, I am a summer person too and the older I get the more that I feel that I will never feel the warmth of the sun on my Aquarian birthday. The final punishment will be to be relegated to a spot beneath the grey frozen tundra every winter for eternity. The thought of a grave surrounded and shaded by palm and palmetto is much more appealing.