A Single Southern Guy in America

August 28, 2003

Summer Set

We’re nearing the end of summer and that may just have me in a bit of a malaise. I cannot help but to be a little wistful for the long, sultry days filled with sunshine. Summer is my season. I have often said that I’ll put away several thousand dollars and just drop out to the islands or Honduras or some place similar. Tela in Northern Honduras would be a great place.

Alas, the days of light after 8 p.m., humidity that makes it not so much breathing as it is drinking the air, and hot days are slowly easing away. The schools have started back, the college kids are back in town, and Labor Day Weekend faces us. The temperature is no longer hovering in the high nineties, and my forecast for next Monday says I can expect highs in the low eighties on Monday. Football season has started and the weather is slowly following its lead.

Fall is a fine season, particularly in a state like Arkansas. The beauty of vast mixed hardwood-pine forests will soon be decorating the landscape. In many ways, the countryside begins to resemble a Christmas tree decorated in natural colors blanketing the rolling hills. In this small town, we are fortunate enough to be home to a university which is widely known as having the finest forestry program in the South. Trees are a part of our way of life here whether we work directly in the timber industry or not. We live near vast fields of agricultural land. We see the rice turning gold into harvest, the cotton bolls swelling with the raw version of what will soon be on our bodies, we see the corn stalks yellow and the ears of corn present themselves for picking. The squirrels begin to shred pine cones for the small seeds within. Soon, the v-formations of and the telltale ‘ah-lonk’ of migrating geese will be overhead. We have a full appreciation for the changes of fall.

Yet, it is still small. For a guy who grew up in a big city, your options for weekends are rather slim. You can flee to the nearest big city, drink, enjoy the outdoors, or immerse yourself into the local events. I do a little bit of each.

High school football will start soon, and Friday nights at the game will be commonplace for me again. The high school has nearly completed their ‘stadium’ renovation which includes a new home side, new covered bleachers for the band and shifting the home side to the east facing side of the field. It will be much more comfortable without having to squint to see the plays develop. Sadly, my old pal Shell has married and moved, so I suppose I’ll be going stag to the games. That’s fine with me as I can always find some of the other locals I have befriended to sit with and cheer the team on to victory.

The expanded stands will be full and everyone from the junior high students to the bank presidents to the factory owners will come out to watch the team. We will spend moments talking about local gossip while we buy hot dogs from the concession stand. Later in the year, we will be bundled up subsisting on coffee and hot cocoa and shivering through the cool night air of a late fall football game.

Football it seems is the only salve for my mourning of summer’s passing. Many content themselves with dove and deer hunting. I’ve never been terribly successful dove hunting and I am far too restless to hunt deer by sitting motionless for hours on a stand. I have football. I wonder if this drives others’ love for fall and football?

In any event, Summer, my dear friend, we shall make the most of our next few weeks together until you take you leave for another 9 months. We’ll have a few more lake days and I’ll sleep underneath your skies at least once more. Then you’ll leave me to my sweatshirts and jackets and football and autumn leaves. I’ll think of you often and plan many ways we can enjoy each other’s company next year.

Posted by Adam H at August 28, 2003 02:49 PM ~ Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (2)
suburban blight linked with Mega-Super-Ultra-Deluxe Cul-de-Sac, Holiday Edition
suburban blight linked with Mega-Super-Ultra-Deluxe Cul-de-Sac, Holiday Edition

Comments

how sweet! Fall, is so refreshing! It is the foreward to a new year!

I miss high school football. I went to one game here in the town I am last year by myself and literally the home team, visiting team, cheerleaders, band, coaches and fans could have all fit on 5-10 bleachers. I am used to sold-out-have-to-have-season-tickets high school football games.... I will be headed to my high school game when I return home! Football season is the best!

Posted by: h at August 28, 2003 03:05 PM

I think I might have to go home early next weekend and go to my high school football game. It's been a while since I visited. This would be a great excuse :)

Posted by: beth at August 28, 2003 03:32 PM

Oh man... "could all fit on 5-10 bleachers"... We barely have a high school football LEAGUE here, let alone FANS... When I was in high school, if you wanted to play football there were about *3* high schools of the 15 or so in my area that actually had teams. Sad sad sad...

Posted by: Ryan Waddell at August 29, 2003 06:58 AM