We’re approaching the end of July now and, as happens every year around this time, I found myself sliding into a midsummer funk. As August looms ahead, I start to mourn the passing of summer. I know there are still, technically, seven more weeks of summer left. The actual midpoint of summer is August 3rd. But we don’t live by calendrical technicality here. What the calendar says and what the weather says are often very different. August might be roasting hot, I hope it is, but there are years, and I shudder to write it, that we’ve had frost in August. This waning of summer sadness is always accompanied by a bout of intense nostalgia. Back in my school days, I felt this keenly. August always meant the approach of another school year and filled me with a sense of dread. I loved the freedom that summer brought, when I lived by my own schedule and felt carefree. To see that ending and the impending regimentation of living by other people’s schedules made me sad. Later in my life, as a teacher, not a student, I felt that same dread. I wanted summer to be endless. I still do.
In 1973, I went to see American Graffiti. I was fifteen. That movie set off a nostalgia craze for my generation. Suddenly we were fascinated by the world of 1962, when we were all just four years old. At church and school dances, we held sock hops. We learned to do the twist and the jitterbug. We listened to the American Graffiti soundtrack album and fell in love with the music – songs by Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holly, Dell Shannon, The Platters, and especially The Beach Boys. Then a year after American Graffiti, in 1974, the Beach Boys released a compilation album called Endless Summer.
All of that music was fresh and new to me when I encountered it in the 70s. We didn’t listen to pop music in our house in my early childhood days. I don’t remember having a radio in the house at all until my sister Hollie got a little transistor radio, around 1966, I think. We didn’t have a radio in our car. Any exposure I got was from the television. I knew the Beatles and the Monkees and later the Osmonds and the Jackson Five from their Saturday morning cartoons – which my parents didn’t like us to watch. Living in south central Pennsylvania and then Ohio and Illinois, my exposure to the popular beach culture of the 60s and its music came from those silly movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. I do remember watching a television show called Malibu U in the summer of 1967 that featured some of the pop and rock stars of the day. I’m not sure how that happened. My parents must not have been paying attention. I know that I didn’t listen to The Beach Boys during their heyday, 1962-67. But when Endless Summer came out in 1974, it became an immediate favorite with me and my friends. All of my friends had tape decks in their cars and I think everyone had an Endless Summer tape. Cruising around on the streets of Naperville, Aurora, and Downers Grove, Illinois, on a summer night, listening to the Beach Boys, we felt we were as cool as those 60s California teens in American Graffiti. And so, Endless Summer sort of became the soundtrack for the Augusts of my life. Listening to it now fills me with deep nostalgia.
I worked all week doing drastic weeding and rearranging in the long border. I divided it into sections and spent an entire day on each section. I pulled up weeds and spent plants. I relocated plants that were growing in places where I did not want them. I moved bulbs to different beds. I cleared places where I will plant new things this fall and next spring. It was hard work and the days were hot. Despite predictions of rain all week, none materialized and I ended up watering a lot to keep things from wilting. The heat, the dust, the work, and seeing the garden begin its decline, helped to fuel my high summer funk. But my funk didn’t last. The Thayns arrived on Thursday and things perked up as soon as they pulled into the driveway.
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| Playing on the front porch. |
Out in the big garden, the row of dahlias I planted are blooming and they are lovely. We’re eating broccoli and green beans. We have an over abundance of cucumbers. The pumpkins are big enough to be noticed. The pigs have excavated a wallow. I keep it filled with water for them, but they turn the water into mud. It’s fun to watch them luxuriate in a mud bath. I feel a little envious watching them in the heat of the day.
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| Some of the dahlias in the big garden. |
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| Pigs and their wallow. |
On Friday I conducted a funeral, one of my least favorite responsibilities as branch president. A sister in our branch, Mary Austin, passed away. She was a month short of her 101st birthday. The funeral was nice. Rachel and Kale played the harp. I gave the eulogy. Stacey gave a talk. Mary’s family members and friends stood and reminisced about Mary. She was a funny woman with a very quirky sense of humor. We went to the cemetery where she was interred next to her husband Charlie who passed away 14 years ago. Then we went back to the chapel for lunch. We sat and ate and talked some more about Mary. She lived a long life and for the last years the troubles of old age were an increasing burden for her. I think she is happy now to be freed from her ancient body for a while. When we see her next, she will be a resurrected being, full of eternal vigor and, I have no doubt, still possessed with that same quirky, funny personality we love. I look forward to seeing her again.
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| Fragrant sweet peas. |
Saturday was a busy day. There were all sorts of things going on. Rachel and I worked at weeding flowerbeds and the onion patch. There were games going on all day – table games and croquet out on the front lawn. Tabor burned the bonfire, an accumulation of branches trimmed from trees and downed by storms. For dinner, Hannah made pizzas and Shilligs came over and we celebrated Russell and Tabor’s birthdays. Russell’s was on Wednesday. He turned two. Tabor’s is on the 31st. We had pie and ice cream. Tabor, Rachel, and Hazel left that evening. Hazel and Rachel are going to girls camp this week. The other children, June, Mabel, Florence, and Russell, are staying here for five days. Miriam is driving them home next weekend after Rachel and Hazel are home from camp.
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| Saturday's bonfire. |
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| Tabor and Russell's celebration. |
Today was our Branch Conference. Members of the Stake Presidency and Stake organizations came to the branch. As Branch President, I was asked to speak. Stacey, our Relief Society President, was asked to bear her testimony. Our Stake President also spoke. The meetings went well. Afterward we had a linger longer lunch. It made for a longer than usual day at church.
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| Zinnias and phlox. |
And then it will be August. August is a busy month. Harvest time in the garden will begin full force. The early apples are ripe now and need picking. Canning season will get underway. Tomatoes will start to ripen. We will dig the first of the potatoes. I will use all those cucumbers to make the first batch of relish this week. Mid month we have a family reunion down in North Carolina. We have more guests arriving during the month to spend time here as well. Having grandchildren here and staying busy and anticipating the reunion will help to keep that old midsummer funk under control. School starts on August 21st and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m done with that now. For the first time in twenty years I don’t have to care. Will the old dread still creep up? It might try out of old habit.
It is hot today. Almost 90 degrees. Because we were late getting home from church, I’m behind schedule. It’s time to do the chores now. Then I will turn on a fan and take a nice summer Sabbath nap.
