The View From Here: August Angst

By Ken DeLaat

Whaaat? August?
Can’t be can it? Why just the other day we were putting the boat in, planting flowers, and taking down the bikes that inevitably go unridden until the day I put them back on their racks.
And now it’s August?
I see where school registration schedules have been posted and the fall sports season for our area student athletes will begin to see coverage in these pages any day now.

July has been a blur with summer fun chewing up the days as we hurtled past a couple of heat waves, welcomed a bit of wet weather and generally embraced the meteorological magic we bi-peninsular people savor so unreservedly.

And now we enter the third month of the quarter year that requires no layering whatsoever. A prelude to another spellbinding season we are so privileged to enjoy to be sure, but a month when we need to ramp up the reveling.

Been down the river in a tube yet? Gone for a dip in an inland lake? Visited the beach at one of our epic freshwater giants? Hiked the myriad of wonderful trails that abound in our region? Kayaked? Paddleboarded? Camped? Canoed? Fished?

Remember last February? Of course not since we tend to block unpleasant memories and February isn’t easily embraceable but there were promises made to yourself during that enduring four week run of wretched weather.
And time is running out to make good on those vows.

So put down the phone, turn off the tube and get thee outside friends and neighbors.
It is summer’s last hurrah and all too soon we’ll be inundated with pumpkin spice, football and all the other accouterments of autumn.

Then once fall arrives it’s only a matter of time before the Old Man begins his Machiavellian machinations designed to outwit wooly bears, acorn producing oaks, and thick-tailed raccoons.
And soon you find yourself back in February, making plans for the distant dream known as summer.

​“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”- Henry David Thoreau

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