Looks like another hot day after a "cooling down" period that lasted for a few days around here. TV weatherman said this morning it would climb in low to mid-nineties today. A group of us have been working hard getting ready for the Central City Rock & Roll Festival which begins August 29 and runs through Sept. 5. That'll about "wrap up" summer activities for the most part as we prepare for fall and later winter. These seasons sure seem to fly by faster as I get older.
It seems like an eternity but before the powers that be decided we weren't getting "smart enough," they would let us out of school around Memorial Day and we didn't go back until after Labor Day. Now the kids around here no more than get out (still around Memorial Day) but they're back in school in early to mid-August. Of course, we didn't get Fall Break and Spring Break although we did get a generous Christmas Vacation that usually ran from about December 20 until January 2.
Summer used to be my favorite season when I was growing up but as the years passed, Spring and Fall (with Fall winning out by a notch) became my favorites. I guess this happened because when we were in school we couldn't get the full enjoyment of Spring and Fall due to school. That also explains why Summer was my favorite in those days. We used to "cheat the season" a little by some spring "skinnydipping" out at Devil's Lake but I always looked forward to early May when Mr. Gish would hire a group of us guys to rake leaves and scrub the walls of the city swimming pool, along with some painting in order to get it opened by the Memorial Day Weekend. We spent most of those summer days using the city park in the mornings and the pool in the afternoons. Summer evenings found us around home chasing and catching "lightning bugs" and waiting for the "Jolly Roger" (a mobile soft serve ice cream shop) to make it's rounds in our neighborhood.
Fall meant the beautiful smell of burning leaves, mixed with the burning of coal from grates and coal furnaces throughout town, not to mention the coal fired railroad engines that were active down at the end of 8th street and over at the roundhouse. I know these things weren't too environmentally friendly but I still enjoy the memories when I smell anything similiar.
Pat and I belong to a convertible owner's club and we get together every week throughout late spring and "cruise" somewhere until mid-fall. By "cruising," I mean we usually, as a group, find a "back road" and drive at a snail's pace for about an hour before we arrive at a restaurant for a meal together. It's lots of fun and we vote on the restaurants we intend to visit at the beginning of "cruising season," place their names in a bucket and each week someone will "draw" where we'll be going the next week (incidentally our standard cruise night is Monday). Our rule is that we cannot go to the same restaurant more than once in a month and we can't go to the same city more than twice in a month. We generally have between 15-20 convertibles in our "convoy."
This past Monday we went to Kirkmansville, Kentucky which has a population of less than 100 people (a whole lot less). City-data.com gives them credit for 1,420 people there and also says there is an average of 22 people per square mile. Believe me, there isn't 64.5 square miles in Kirkmansville so my estimate of the population is a lot closer than theirs. Anyway, Kirkmansville is in Todd County and you get there by going south on the Weir Road (next door to the hospital) in Greenville for about 20 miles. Weir Road is extremely curvy and hilly so naturally you're going to remain at "cruising speed" (about 40 mph) most of the way, even if you're driving a Corvette. In the middle of Kirkmansville is it's only active business, a general store/grocery/pool hall/opryhouse & restaurant called "Helen's." It's named after it's owner, "Helen" (don't know her last name) and has been there for years. We always kid "Helen" about when we visit Kirkmansville, we "double" their population.
Anyway, Helen likes to have us over (there were 46 of us Monday evening) and she and her staff always prepare a feast fit for a king (or queen). When I say "feast," it included Pork Tenderloin, fried squash, home grown tomatoes, home cooked pinto beans, corn bread, sliced potato casserold, fresh green beans and more stuff than I can remember. Desserts also included home made banana pudding, Hickory Nut pie (same as pecan but with hickory nuts instead), coconut cream pie, chocolate cake...all the stuff you'd get at your Grandmother's on Sunday afternoon. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend you give it a try, especially on Friday or Saturday nights when whe also has fresh catfish and local entertainers perform in the opryhouse portion of the place.
I said all that to tell you this. After we left, as is customary, we usually go to a "hangout" for a coke or cup of coffee. More than not we'll go to either the Sonic Drive-in in Greenville or Central City since they have outdoor tables and we can park our cars under the lighted canopy. Monday night we decided we'd meet at the Sonic in Greenville. Everyone's on their own after the main cruise so we sometimes take different routes to the next stop. Pat & I went a couple of blocks from "Helen's" to highway 107, turned east and drove over to 181 at Clifty and headed north to Greenville. It was a cool, beautiful evening so we rolled up the side windows and kept the top down. You can see and smell things in an open convertible that you usually don't in a closed, air-conditioned sedan. Some of these aren't so good (skunks, manure, chicken houses, etc.) but there are a lot of things that conjure up memories of days past.
Along our route, a farmer had cleared some land and had built a huge bonfire from the piles of dead trees. You could smell it for about a mile or so and it smelled just like the many campfires we used to build as boys sleeping in our back yards and telling an endless stream of ghost stories (girls called these "slumber parties"). A little further, we could see and smell several "curing fires" in the many tobacco barns. It's a smell that defines Fall in these parts and with less people using tobacco, it's getting more scarce. We even smelled a couple of areas where the residents were getting the jump on the fall season by raking and burning some of the early fallen leaves. That's probably my favorite aroma. I'm looking forward to the next two or three months and getting out in our convertible to enjoy the color of the changing leaves and the aroma of burning ones. If you don't own (or have access to) a convertible, find a pickup truck and an old country road...load everyone in the back and go "cruising." You'll be surprised at the sights and sounds you've forgotten about.
Our home in Cherry Hill Pointe is relatively new (7 yrs. old) and the trees haven't grown enough to generate many leaves. It's easiest just to mulch 'em with the lawn mower. Our cabin at Lake Malone is a different story, however. We have several large trees of various breeds and they deposit lots of leaves each fall. We usually let most of them reach the ground then take an entire weekend and go up there and rake and burn them. Our youngest granddaughter came up for a day with us last fall. She also lives in a relatively new home in Owensboro and again...not many leaves to mess with. We had raked them into a huge pile before burning them and she got to do what all kids like to do when they see a pile of leaves....dive right into them. I did it, my kids did it and now my grandkids are doing it. She frolicked in that old pile of leaves (along with our Dachshund) for over an hour and when she left, we had to rake them again. We didn't mind. As the sun began to set we lit 'em up and for the next couple of hours we enjoyed the aroma as they converted themselves into embers.
I'm having a great summer (albeit a short one) and I always hate to see it end but I'm always ready for fall. I even enjoy winter until Christmas then I'm ready for spring. Here in Kentucky, we have about two months of Spring, four months of Summer, two months of Fall and four more months of Winter (if we're lucky). I think it would be ideal to have four months of Spring, two months of Summer, four months of Fall and two months of Winter. Of course since we're only having two months of winter, make it two months of a good hard winter. The 12" snowfalls, cold north winds, crackling fires in fireplaces, heavy warm bedrolls and frozen lakes. I don't want any more ice storms, however...we've had enough of that to last a lifetime.
In the meantime, hop in your car and roll down the windows. Strike out a country road and drive without getting into overdrive. Search out the sights and sounds and smells...better yet, bring along the kids if they're small or the grandkids. Let them experience this euphoria. Don't let them bring along their portable DVD player or ipod or cell/texting phone. Let them savor the day and their surroundings and when they get home that evening, they'll have plenty to text about...only thing is it'll be hard to come up with words to describe it.
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