Seasons

Summer Kind Of Sucks

Yeah, Another Blogger165 Comments

Ah, my mind is drifting back to the carefree days of my youth, ages ago, when I embraced the summer season, thinking nothing of being outside in the sun for hours on end. What was there not to like? Playing baseball, basketball, volleyball, golf, and tennis sure as hell was very alright with me. As were any number of other outdoor activities, including a passive yet major one. Namely, lying on beaches and in the backyard of the house I grew up in. There, while listening to music on my transistor radio, I’d soak up the sun’s vibrant rays in hopes that the suntan lotion I’d slathered all over my body would help my innately pale skin shift to a handsome shade of bronze.

Well, a bronze god I never became. Or a god of any sort, for that matter. Shit! But, despite that disappointment, I had plenty of fun, fun, fun in the summertime.

That’s no longer the case. Nope, I haven’t been a fan of summer for quite a few years. The heat doesn’t agree with me. Nor does a maniacally sneering sun. Thus, when the temperature is above 80°F (27°C) and the sun is unblocked by clouds, which is the scenario on the majority of summer days, I’m not in a rush to mow the lawn, go for a cardio walk in my steeply hilled neighborhood, or engage in any other semi-strenuous activity. When those meteorological conditions are in play, I’d rather spend my time productively indoors — belching harmonically, for example, as I twirl the five strands of hair remaining on the crown of my head.

Nevertheless, a boy needs his exercise. Which is why, on a recent morning, when it already was hot enough at 10:00 AM to fry an egg on the sidewalk, I jumped into my car and drove to the enclosed, three-story mall less than a mile from my home. I spent 40 minutes there, striding purposefully along its avenues and raising my heart rate in the process.

What was true even before the COVID pandemic arrived is far truer now in the wake of that siege. Meaning, the mall is struggling. I saw any number of vacancies. And a bunch of shops, still in business apparently, had decided not to open that day. Except for food stores, pharmacies and a few other commercial businesses, how does any retail establishment, pretty much anywhere, compete with online shopping anymore? I don’t know. It’s a troubling situation. Many jobs are at stake.

Still, I enjoyed the walk, looking, as I was, for store-window posters that idealized the joys of summer. I found a few that did precisely that. They almost made me think that fun in the summer sun could still be a significant part of my life. Then I returned to reality. I mean, all of the models in the posters were under age 25, a time in life when summer heat doesn’t make you melt like ice cream, and the sun wants only to bless you. I don’t fit into that picture.

Heat-wise, more likely than not, the worst will have passed by late September. Autumn, my favorite time of year, should be in first gear by then, starting to bestow its charms and cooler temperatures upon my part of the globe (southeastern Pennsylvania, USA). I damn well am looking forward to those developments.

Yes, I’ll be happy to wave goodbye to summer. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to get on summer’s wrong side, considering that its normal side is just about too much for me. That’s why I’m going to try and appease the blazing season by ending this essay with one of the best summer songs ever: Hot Fun In The Summertime, by Sly And The Family Stone. It came out in 1969 and sounds as good today as it did then. Maybe better. What grit, what cool, what joyfulness and power! Summer kind of sucks, but this recording doesn’t.

Springtime Close-Ups

Yeah, Another Blogger156 Comments

Maybe it was due to global warming, or maybe Nature was just feeling antsy. Whatever the reason, spring arrived way earlier than usual this year in my neck of the woods, aka southeastern Pennsylvania, USA. Man, I saw a few trees in flower on the 22nd of March, for crying out loud. That’s at least three weeks sooner than tree-blossoming normally begins. And maples and other big boys of the non-flowering kind unfurled their greenery far ahead of schedule too.

I ain’t complaining, though. A lover of colorful spectacles, I rate the springtime performances of flora quite high on my entertainment list (though not at the lofty level occupied by autumn’s leaves-changing-color extravaganza). Thus, you’ll find me taking a number of walks each spring in which my focus is to admire colors that were unavailable during winter. I spent an hour recently in my suburban neighborhood doing exactly that. My trusty and trusted smart phone was in hand, its camera poised for action. The plan was to use the camera strictly for close-ups. Not of my face, of course, as any images of that rutted, crusty object would have shattered the f*cking camera lens. But of flowering trees and bushes? You bet! Close-ups eliminate surrounding distractions. They get straight to the heart. A close-ups day it would be.

Japanese cherry tree
Japanese andromeda

The conditions for the walk were ideal — sunny, cool and breezy. So breezy, in fact, that I had to hold on tightly to my baseball cap a few times, lest it blow off the previously mentioned rutted, crusty object. I strolled from block to block to block, getting up close and personal with cherry trees, azalea and lilac bushes, and other examples of Nature’s wonders. That didn’t happen as often as I’d have liked, however, since many lovely creations were in the middle or rears of people’s lawns. You better believe I wasn’t about to step onto those lawns, not being in the mood to have homeowners yell at me from their front doors or, worse, come dashing out of their homes to confront me. Sadly but truly, you never know what might happen these days. We sure as shit live in uncertain times.

Dogwood tree
Azalea bush

Nonetheless, the walk was a damn fine one. I felt relaxed and at peace, my head pretty much devoid of thoughts. All of which took me by surprise, as I am, for the most part, a natural-born worrier and overthinker, and good and tight in the shoulders too. Calmly on the lookout for pretty colors, I somehow had entered a near-zen state. That’s part of the magic that a Nature walk sometimes imparts to me. I could go for that degree of mental and emotional clarity and ease all the time. It’s the way to be, of that there is no doubt.

Azalea bush
Lilac bush

I haven’t inhaled spring’s charms and soothing hues all that much since the walk I describe took place. I plan to pick up the pace soon, though, because before you know it all of the flowering trees and shrubs in my area will have dropped their blossoms. I find it a shame that spring’s delicacy and soothingness don’t last for at least several weeks more than they do. If I were in charge of Nature, they would. Hell, let’s take this a few steps further: If I were in charge of Nature, violence and disease would not exist. Living things would not feed upon other living things. The world, in other words, would be a gentle and wonderful place, one in which all organisms, including humans, of course, would spend their days in fulfilling and pain-free manners.

A boy can dream, right?

Autumnal Thoughts, Autumnal Tunes

Yeah, Another Blogger149 Comments

Planet Earth, which we humans increasingly have been making a mess of since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s, nonetheless has remained reliable in various ways. It keeps on spinning, for one thing, and traveling around the Sun, for another. Good thing that it does, no? If those movements were thrown out of whack, we, along with every entity taking up earthly space, would be goners in a couple of blinks of an eye.

Well, as we know, on the 22nd of September those good ol’ reliable movements brought about the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox in, respectively, the northern and southern hemispheres. This was due to the Sun being directly above the equator, by the way. For me, a resident of the north, this event officially marked the beginning of my favorite time of year — fall — and prompted me to gather some thoughts about that season. Here they are, along with a few recordings that capture fall’s cozy, mellow essence. Damn straight, I’m in an autumnal mood!

This is the main reason why I like autumn as much as I do: I was born in late October, smack in the heart of fall. And my birthday has been lovingly acknowledged and celebrated, by one combination of people or another, every year of my life. Over time it became only natural for me to associate autumn with my birth anniversary. How could I not, seeing that autumn never fails to whisper frequent reminders in my ear about the approaching big day? And when that day arrives, autumn, behind the scenes, is one of the celebrants. Yeah, autumn loves me, and I therefore love autumn back, you dig?

Hatboro, Pennsylvania

To meld with autumn righteously and timely, on its first day this year I took a long walk through Hatboro, a cute town a few miles from where I live in the Philadelphia suburbs. I headed there with the newly-hatched season fully on my mind. The mid-day temperature was lovely, about 73° F (23° C), the skies were as blue as you could hope for, and a light breeze ruffled the few strands of hair that remain on the crown of my head. In other words, the day was pretty damn well ideal. How sweet it was not to be sweating like a pig, which I had done numerous times during walks in the just-departed summer. Autumn weather suits me just fine.

Produce Junction (Hatboro, Pennsylvania)
Hints of gold in a tree in Hatboro, Pennsylvania

Hatboro was starting to get its autumnal mode in order. For instance, I saw scarecrows on a couple of porches and in a couple of store windows, and I gazed with admiration at the arrays of pumpkins in Produce Junction, a store on Hatboro’s main drag. But there was little evidence of fall in the billions of leaves within Hatboro’s boundaries. Only in a smattering of trees did I notice a changing of the color guard, such as in a tree outside of Produce Junction. Hints of gold decorated that specimen, harbingers of full-blown color transformations yet to come. I’m eagerly awaiting mid-to-late autumn’s golds, russets, burgundies and ambers. That palette grabs me powerfully each year, yet tenderly. Yes, autumn is a period of beauty that goes down as satisfyingly as comfort food.

As I walked through Hatboro, I pulled some autumn tunes out of my memory bank and let passages of them play silently in my head. I’ve always loved Autumn Almanac, by The Kinks, and Van Morrison’s Autumn Song. They provided part of my stroll’s soundtrack. As did Harvest Moon, a Neil Young composition that quite a number of musicians have covered. Young’s version is special. It makes me go limp with wonder, so beautiful do I find it. In Hatboro, those songs, and a few others, kept me company excellently.

Back home later that day I did some research into fall-themed songs, discovering Eva Cassidy’s live rendition of Autumn Leaves (music by Joseph Kosma, English lyrics by Johnny Mercer). With vocals emanating from Cassidy’s most-private chambers, this performance would break the hearts of all but the stoniest. And I reconnected with Autumn Serenade (music by Peter DeRose, lyrics by Sammy Gallop), off the album that the famous saxophonist John Coltrane recorded in 1963 with the not-so-famous vocalist Johnny Hartman. A bit more research would have revealed many others, so deep a hold has autumn maintained on songwriters past and present.

Rather than overload this essay with YouTube presentations, I’ve decided to limit the recordings to three. I think you’ll enjoy the following Young, Cassidy and Coltrane/Hartman works. Be well, boys and girls. And, as I usually mention, please don’t be shy about adding your comments.