The only 3 things I don't like about summer

When you live in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. as I do, you spend a good chunk of the year looking forward to summer (which as far as I'm concerned begins today).

We only get four months of truly warm temperatures, so it's a big deal when they finally arrive.

And by the way, referring back to the opening paragraph, I live in Lake County, Ohio, about 3 miles from the southern shore of Lake Erie. Thus, I live in the Great Lakes region and not in the Midwest.

Yes yes, I know we're considered part of the Midwest for purposes of the U.S. Census, but I firmly believe we are more accurately classified as Great Lakers in geography, accent and temperament.

Anyway...

We here spend so much time looking forward to warm summer breezes that we idealize the season to an unrealistic degree. As if summer is the perfect state of being and there is no more desirable plane of human existence.

I'm almost onboard with that perspective except for a few things:

(1) I'm a regular walker. One of those arm-swinging fast walkers, in fact. I'm on the road four and sometimes five mornings a week. In the winter when I get home from a brisk walk and shed my hat, gloves and sweatshirt, it feels good. In the summer, I have nothing to shed at the end of a walk besides my reflective vest, and I sweat. I keep on sweating, even after showering. Doesn't matter if we have our air conditioning on full blast, I'm going to sweat for an hour after a summer morning walk. I don't like that.

(2) Summer means the return of Compost Paul. Compost Paul is the name of the plastic bin we keep on our kitchen counter in the warmer months. It holds food scraps destined for our outdoor compost bin ("Compost Paul" being a slight variation of "Compost Pail"). Compost Paul fills up fast, and quite often I'm the one who fills him up. Which means I need to be the one to carry him out to the bin, empty him, and rinse him out. I dislike this chore, and I consider it a black mark against the whole summer season.

(3) I spend an inordinate chunk of the summer worrying about the end of summer. I'm not kidding. The calendar turns to July 1st and all I can think is, "Summer is already half over. School starts next month. Oh no!" This is insane, and I realize it's the very definition of a me problem. Still, a big black cloud seems to hang over my summers, as if every day is a Sunday and I'm going to back to work the next morning. I may need some therapy.

All the same, welcome back, summer. You were (mostly) missed.

The fleeting summer

Now that all of my kids have graduated, the end of the academic year doesn't mean as much to me as it used to (other than high school sports PA announcing opportunities drying up for a few months).

The only thing I really notice is that my drive to work gets faster in the summer.

I drive past a busy elementary school on weekday mornings. When school is in session, my commute usually coincides with drop-off time, and the line of cars backs up into the street I take to get to the office.

It's not that big a deal, especially because there's a friendly police officer there every morning directing traffic, and he allows those of us not dropping off kids to pull around the line and be on our merry way.

But that's not until we get relatively close to the school driveway. Until that point, I sit in stopped traffic for a few minutes, particularly if the school crossing guard is having a busy morning ferrying kids across the road (which he generally is, given that this school is in a residential neighborhood and features a lot of parents and kids walking to school).

Much like an 8-year-old in June looking forward to a long summer vacation, once school lets out, I get excited about 12 weeks of drop-off line-free driving in the mornings. It feels like I'm going to be zooming to and from work forever.

But before I know it, and way before it feels like it should be happening, the drop-off line is back. Early September rolls around and those same kids, all a little older and now a grade higher, are back out there clogging up the roads in pursuit of an education.

Again, not a burden at all, but it does remind me how fast summers go, especially when you live in a place like Northeast Ohio where cool (or freezing cold) weather is the rule eight months out of the year and sometimes longer.

We so look forward to summers here on America's North Coast (we're the only ones who call the southern shore of Lake Erie that) that once they arrive, we sometimes hang our entire emotional wellbeing on them.

"Please, please, please stay warm and dry. Just for a little while. Please. The snow will come soon enough. Whoever is in charge of the weather, I will pay them $1,000 just for the opportunity to wear flip-flops for a few weeks."

This helps to explain why so many people around here, especially boys in the 12 to 16 age range, start wearing shorts when it's still freezing outside. We're so desperate for warm weather that we'll pretend it's here once the weak, early-spring sun comes out, even if the air temperature tops out at 40 degrees.

All of this is to point out what you already know: (A) It's July 25th. Somehow. (B) It's still summer, but kids start going back to school in just a few weeks. (C) Nothing good ever seems to last.

Enjoy it while you can, gang.

You can really take the convenience of summer for granted

It's only around this time of year, with the beginning of autumn just a couple of weeks away, that I realize the best thing about summer is the convenience.

Like, for example, when you want to go somewhere, you just throw on shoes and leave. No jacket, no boots, no hat and gloves. You just go.

And when you're driving around Northeast Ohio like I do, you don't have to add any extra travel time for weather delays. If it's normally a 15-minute trip, it will be a 15-minute trip.

That's not to mention the fact that I never have to worry about small cuts caused by excessively dry skin on my fingertips in June. That's a January thing, as are chapped lips. I keep a steady supply of lotion and Chapstick close at hand during those winter months.

Even on the hottest and most humid days, summer is generally just easier for those of us living in temperate regions.

I suspect this will soon be brought home to me during my five-mornings-a-week trips to the gym.

I started working out in early June. To date, that has meant leaving the house in just my workout clothes and gym shoes. Nothing else.

In a few months, that same excursion will also involve:

• Bundling up in appropriate outerwear
• Driving on potentially slippery roads to the gym
• Walking into the gym and taking off my coat, hat and gloves
• Also taking off my boots or other winter-proof shoes
• Replacing those with gym shoes
• Putting everything back on as my sweaty self leaves post-workout, likely soaking the inside of my coat and gloves.
• Driving back home on those same slippery roads

All of which suggests a move to warmer climes sometime in the future to avoid all of the winter hassle.

But I can't imagine that ever happening. After all, where's the fun in that?

The promise of June

For some people, the start of a new year is the time to reenergize and look ahead with optimism. For others it's the coming of spring.

To me, though, you can't beat the arrival of June.

I once called June "the greatest month of the year," and I stand by that.

Part of it is the weather. I am grateful to live in Northeast Ohio 365 days a year, but when it comes to getting outside and being active, June has the best balance of warm, sunny days without the near-Florida-like humidity that comes along in July and August.

Also, for the first several years of your life, June probably meant summer vacation. You played, you relaxed, and you got yourself ready for the next grade up in school, whatever that may have been.

It is also as good a time as any to address whatever it is in your life that needs addressing. Just as the cold and snow are behind us, so too can be the problems and issues that have weighed on your mind for so long. The calendar has flipped, so your attitude may as well change with it.

Easier said than done, I understand, but you have to start sometime. June 1st is a pretty good candidate.

Happy June, everybody (even to my Southern Hemisphere friends for whom June is more a reminder that winter is on the way...on balance, you still have better weather than we do.)

We're halfway through February, my fellow Northerners. Hang in there!

These are the dark times for those of us who live in cold climates. We are almost uniformly sick of winter, yet it still has several more weeks to go.

But there is light. There is hope. There is something to hang onto.

After today, we are firmly into the second half of February.

Yes! It's a leap year, of course, which means February has one extra excruciating day tacked onto it. But March is in sight. Which means spring is in sight.

Sort of.

I live in Northeast Ohio, where March does not always necessarily equal spring. Some of the worst snowstorms I remember have happened in March.

Regardless, if March is in sight, that means April is also on the horizon. And even in the worst of years, April is when you start to see the temperatures (slowly) rise and the snow fade away.

So this is my rallying cry to all those who are enduring the cold grayness of February: Stay strong. Be positive. There will be an end to this.

And then? This...

No, not bird attacks. Summer! I'm talking about summer! Geez...

My kids just got out of school 5 minutes ago and now they're going back tomorrow...

I have been guilty, on this blog, of being very "BACK IN MY DAY!" when it comes to complaining about the way school is for my kids now vs. the way it was for me back in the 70s and 80s.

Which is unfair, really. I like our local school district a lot. I think they do a good job educating my children.

So when I whine today about the fact that my youngest three children go back to school tomorrow (yes, on August 18th), please know that I do so with the understanding that Wickliffe isn't the only school district following this trend of ever-earlier start dates.

I just sort of wish we could go back to the way it used to be.

As I've mentioned before, when I was in elementary school (and maybe a bit beyond?), we never used to go back to school until after Labor Day. Of course, we also didn't get out for the summer until mid-June, but I liked that schedule. Once you get into early September, summer is much more "over" than it is in mid-August.

Because that's the problem, you see: IT'S STILL SUMMER RIGHT NOW. I'm writing this several weeks in advance and thus don't know what the weather will be like in mid-August as you read it, but I'm betting it feels a lot more like summer than it does fall. And "fall" is when you should be going back to school. Not summer, when 90-degree temperatures are far more likely in Northeast Ohio.

Now, having said that, I will also say that I'm a proponent of year-round school. If we're going to mess with the traditional academic calendar, let's go all the way and do it for the right reasons.

The fact that schools let out for so long every summer is a remnant of an age when kids were needed to tend the crops and bring in the harvest. That's not the case for 99% of American students anymore, so why can't we have the kids go to school 9 weeks at a time, then take a 4-week break and do that year-round? If you want the summer break to be a little longer, than make two of the breaks from other times of the year last only 3 weeks.

The point is, the kids don't need to be off for 11 or 12 weeks at a time, do they? I'm not an educational expert and am happy to be corrected on this, but I would venture to say shorter breaks would mean increased retention of learned knowledge and skills, no? I remember back in my school days that the first several weeks always seemed to be spent in review anyway, so why not shorten breaks and get right into new learning?

Am I wrong there, teachers? Let me know if I am.

In any case, if we're going to stick with the current set-up, my vote is to keep summer vacation going until early September and then let the kids out round about June 15th. If one of you could look into that for me and make it happen, I would appreciate it.

5 ways you can tell it's summer in Northeast Ohio

(1) Acres of pasty white flesh. Everywhere.
My buddy Kenny Beavers, a wise man of African-American descent, once said, "The snow melts and white people think it's summer." Which is of course absolutely true. White people around this part of the country have been walking around in shorts since late March. But here we are three months later and there's no denying that summer is actually here. The direct result of this is that those same white people think it's perfectly fine to wear next to nothing when they're outside these days, regardless of their physical condition or the degree to which they do or do not tan when exposed to sunlight. If the sight of these people bothers you, then I can only apologize on behalf of my fellow Caucasians.

(2) Fourteen people per square foot in every public pool
Our Window of Summer Fun Opportunity is very small here on America's North Coast, which is why we try to cram in all the summer activities we can from mid-June until school starts up again in August. Your neighborhood pool is likely packed with people doing their best to have fun despite the fact that they are hemmed in on all sides by others trying to do the same (every third person of whom has most definitely peed in that pool sometime in the previous 20 minutes...just saying).

(3) Mandals
I don't know how I feel about man sandals. I don't think they look good on me because I have big calves. But guys with sleeker legs than mine can pull them off, I think. Not everyone agrees with me (case in point: my former Dix & Eaton colleague Lisa Zone ). And when I say sandals, I'm talking the strappy brown variety. I'm cool with the black athletic slider-type sandals that also come out of hiding this time of year.

(4) Cookouts and their associated smells
We don't own a charcoal grill, but I love the smell of charcoal because it just screams "June" to me. If you live in the suburbs, then you know how much people like us love their cookouts. "I can cook outside! On the deck! Without shoveling a path to the grill! Isn't this awesome?

(5) Cornhole
I hate to come back to the white people thing again, because I'm sure there are plenty of other ethnic groups who enjoy this game. But by and large, cornhole is the domain of white people. They even love making their own customized cornhole boards. Technically you could play cornhole in the fall or even the winter, but just...no. It's a summer game. Playing it any other time violates the spirit of Middle Class Person Summer, and I won't have it.