All good things come to an end, but not today.

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Today, during this last weekend in July, I officially started to get ready for fall. Counting today, there are 85 days before an October 15^th frost. In the past five years, we have had a frost as early as September 29^th out here away from the stored heat of the city. That would give us 69 days before we get nipped. So I went out and planted approximately 700 sunflowers. It has worked the last two years. The varieties that I planted have 60 to 70 day to bloom dates. It could be close. But what better way to thumb our noses at the cold that is coming than to say every day on this side of the frost date is ours. We will enjoy these golden disks as they turn their faces towards the sun of an ever shortening day; take that Jack Frost.

In other preparations, I just signed up for the MS: Crusin’ the Crossroads event on September 6, in Anderson. That’s right. Bev is gone that weekend on a women’s retreat at the Dunes, and I, left to my own devices, think that it will be fun to get out and ride 100 miles. It is a fund raising bike ride for all of the Type-A bike riders out there. I could feel guilty about spending 7 hours on a bike and not getting anything done around the house. Or I could go on a fund raising bike ride and relieve all of the residual guilt. The fund raiser is a God send for us with overwrought senses of wasted time guilt. You can help out by watching my facebook page. I will post support opportunities there. I will be begging on that page from to time. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Enough of the future; let’s live in the present. At church today, it became very evident that the folks in South Madison county have turned their calendars to August and have realized that school is just about to restart. "I can't believe that summer is nearly over." "I can't believe that school is just about to start again." "Where did summer go?" Those were the refrains sung by the congregation today.

Several years ago, the lovely Miss Beverly and I were on a vacation in South Haven, Michigan. They have a wonderful ice cream store called Sherman Ice Cream Company. It was a lovely vacation spot. I have found that I rate all of my vacation spots based on the availability of fine ice cream in the vicinity. The only problem with this vacation was that starting Tuesday, we sang the same refrain. We sang, “I can’t believe that vacation is almost over.”

I am particularly susceptible to the affliction of anticipatory regret. Growing up, I would count down the days left in Christmas vacation. Summer vacation would feel like it was over on Independence Day. This made for brutal irony; giving up the independence of summer on July 4th. 

My anticipatory regret was so strong that I would start to anticipate when snow storms would start to slacken. Figuring that the snow fell in a bell curve, building from flurries to heavy then tapering off, I would watch the heavens intently and then feel disappointment at the first perceived diminishing of intensity. I would know at that moment that the snow day was over sooner than later. All good things come to an end.

I don’t know how the epiphany came. It may have been fueled by a “slop trough” of black raspberry supreme or was it a half gallon of rocky road, maybe it was four scoops of blue moon. I am sure that it was ice cream inspired. Great ideas like this are not inspired by mere meditation or self-actualization. No, they are forged in the brain chemical bath of cream, sugar, and chocolate. So in South Haven, Michigan, we found that today is the first day of the rest of our summer vacation.

It has made a huge difference in our lives. In the old world, vacation would last three maybe four days. Now a week of vacation lasts seven days. You would be amazed at what can happen on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. There are miles to ride, blogs to write, and ice cream to eat on the first day of the rest of summer vacation. For the lovely Miss Beverly, her summer vacation now lasts ten weeks, instead of being cut off shortly after the fourth of July; that’s an extra 4 weeks of summer bliss.

So if you’re going to keep a sharp out for the onset of fall and colder weather, plant some sunflowers and let them keep track for you. All good things come to an end but not today, the first day of the rest of our summer vacation.

Take care,

Roger