Summer Time

In this part of the country, most of June consisted of cool days with lots of rain. LOTS of rain. Suddenly, it started to feel like summer and we're all looking at each other and saying "July 4th is THIS week?!" No one seems to be ready for it.

Sunday afternoon was a perfect summer day. My mom still holds a membership to the swim club where she took all of us as kids, in Bucks County, PA. Picture the mom with eight kids, bringing the playpen and a packed lunch. We were there Sunday with one of my brothers and one of my boys, soaking up the sun.

Some things never change. The kids still master that gait, something like a trot, which is as close as you can get to a run without having a whistle blown at you (though kids don't get "benched" as much as when I was little). It is still a necessary maneuver for a kid to pull herself halfway up from the water, putting a knee up on the ledge and pushing off with exactly the right pressure to get out of the pool without shredding the skin on the concrete. Every so often, the train whistles and charges through a corridor of trees nearby, and close to dinner time you can smell the charcoal getting hot on the grills. It was good just to be, and have the time to enjoy it.