ENDLESS SUMMER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-22-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     My friend Paul hates the heat and wants nothing more than for summer to be over a couple weeks before it begins. I, on the other hand, want to prolong the balmy weather for as long as possible. I want to wear white long after Labor Day, knowing full well that I will spill spaghetti sauce on it as often as necessary. My fall season consists of keeping summer alive on life support, applying warm compresses to its forehead and whispering words of encouragement in its ear. At least I HOPE that was its ear. I'm not ready for the last hurrah of summer, so if you hear me say "hurrah," you'll know it was for something else.

     So we headed upstate to our favorite little town on Lake Oneida for the Labor Day weekend to scratch out a few more golden rays. The drive up was pleasant, I was daydreaming a bit, and when I woke from my reverie I found I was behind two motorboats, and they were going pretty fast. If I'd have known you could go that fast on land I never would have put my boat in the water. We arrived just in time for a beautiful sunset over the lake. 

     The weather was perfect for outdoor dining at the cafe. There's still a drought going on so restaurants were serving only dehydrated water. A musician was playing guitar and singing, and he also had a drum machine, a harmonizer, keyboard tracks, bass tracks and a truckload of reverb and guitar effects. One of these days all that technology might eventually get together and decide that he is superfluous. He did look a little lonely on stage; without anyone to fight with what's the point of being in a band?

     Next day we settled in at the shore beach, and I found an AM station on my transistor radio that brought me right back to my childhood. I was afraid it was going to leave me there with only a paper route as a means of support. It was a time when Jeremiah was best known for being a bullfrog, a time when you could walk like a man, talk like a man, even while singing like a girl in falsetto. It was a time when love grows where my Rosemary goes, and I wish I could get her to stand on my lawn for just a few seconds, so at least SOMETHING would grow there. It was a time when music was really, well actually it was not as good as I remembered it. But it was the feeling that that it brought was very comfortable, which was a refreshing change from my beach chair. Who knew that you could still find such a station on a transistor radio? Who knew you could still find a transistor radio?

     About 30 boats were tied up together in a festive flotilla. I don't have my boat anymore, and it's a good thing because it would have been ME who waved farewell to the other rowdy revelers after my picnic, put my throttle to the metal, only to remember too late that I was tied to all those other boats. What a coincidence that we're all going to my slip! I waded closer to the boats from shore to see their names. One was called, "Ya Gotta Love It," it doesn't say what, so I decide to just play along and love everything. One was called, "Go With the Floo" (there is no spelling test to get your boat registration), there were TWO named "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere," so between the two of them I guess it's 10 o'clock somewhere. There was one named, if you didn't already guess, "El Duderino." If your boat is named "El Duderino," you've already told me everything I need to know about you.

     At night we went over to the casino. Even though we are not gamblers, we love the energy and the selection in restaurants and nightlife. We settled on Chinese cuisine, there they wait on you hand and feet, even though I don't need my feet waited on. Asian chefs and I disagree about the actual minimum daily requirement for celery. I feel that celery is good for demonstrating the principle of capillary action to grade school science students, and for stirring bloody Marys, and that seems more than enough. At the end of the meal I ask for three fortune cookies, in case I have to break a tie.

     At the bar a country band was playing, so at least I knew I would not be hearing any Britney Spears for the evening. That observation held true only for two more songs, and then oops, she did it again. The country band may not have been from this country. We wandered back out to the slot machines to try our luck, and we beat the one-armed bandit. If he had had two arms I'm sure he could have taken us. We won just enough money for two more drinks to toast a summer well-spent.