The Saturday Morning Blogger – Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer?

James Barrington

I remember a song from my youth that said something like, “Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…” I guess I should admit to having more than my share of naps this summer, but it feels more like they are due to exhaustion than laziness. Maybe that’s just my take on things.

Almost as soon as school was out for the summer, we ran away to spend a week in Maine with our older daughter and her family. I came back from that more worn out than before I left – and I was CERTAIN that I NEEDED a vacation when we boarded the airplane. The events of that trip, although enjoyable with the kids and grandkids, were exhausting.

That was just the first week of the summer of 2017! We’re already talking about band practices, football season and school again! What’ with that?!?

I remember childhood summers (through the haze and fog of memory) spent reading “Tom Swift” books on the front porch. Of course my brother and I had to mow lawns to make money for the movies, but that was generally not more than one or two lawns a day in our lazy pace. This summer, it’s not like I have a lot to do, it just seems that everything on my calendar has a deadline!

I have been reading a lot this summer, but as the calendar pages are now flying by like the second hand on my watch used to, I find myself turning reading sessions into nap sessions more often than not. A recent slip-and-fall accident has slowed my walking. The heat has reduced my appetite. I’m not really complaining, although it may sound that way. What I’m trying to do is get my mind around this thing called aging. I know I’m not “OLD” yet, because I heard the other day, “Old is 20 years older than I am.” That sounds like a good philosophy to me. Most of the folks I visit in nursing homes talk about those old folks down the hall, never pondering the face that looks back from the mirror. That’s a good thing to my way of thinking. Who wants to be old? Mature? Experienced? We have a lot of euphemisms for “old.”

Although my August calendar is already filling up – and I hate to think what the school calendar may bring – I hope to get a few days to get away to the mountains, or the seacoast, or a hotel overlooking a lake – just for a few days. A nap while breathing mountain air or the sea’s salty air would be a refreshing change. I think a touch of change is one of the things that makes for an interesting vacation. I just like for the change to be at a pace I can manage these days.