Hello Summer

So summer, you are finally here. Took you long enough. We had such a long winter and such a crappy spring. My rose bush nearly died and my garden, which at this time last year was producing tomatoes, hasn't given me squat. But all is forgiven, Ms. Mother Nature. The temperatures are rising and we have humidity.

I've always loved summer. I loved summer so much that I moved to the place where it's summer all damn year long. I remember when I was a kid, I dreamed of living in the Dairy Palace. That's a frozen custard stand in Tinley Park. I dreamed of being able to eat frozen custard all day long. I wanted to hold my mouth under the spigot where the frozen custard came out and eat it until I burst. That's kind of what Florida was like. I liked Florida until I didn't like it anymore. After fifteen years of heat and humidity, I learned to hate it. Now, after going through all the seasons in Chicago, I can appreciate summer again. Warm days and nights bring back memories. Cicadas rattling in the evening dusk, lightning bugs flashing as they float through the bushes. Even the faint smell of a distant skunk brings back memories of summers past. When you were a kid, summer meant going to the beach and cleaning sand out of your shoes and ass crack for a few days afterwards. Summer was a hiatus from the rigors of school. In the 1950s, the Good Humor Man would come down our street every day. Although 'Man' wasn't quite what he was. Usually the ice cream man was a cute college boy. I know that because all the girls on the street swooned when he came by. I wasn't into older men. As I did grow older I added to my summer memories. Cross country road trips. Picking marijuana from fields in Indiana. Outdoor rock concerts.

Yes, I still love summer despite Florida's attempt to kill it for me. And I still love frozen custard. That Dairy Palace is only open in summer, and hey, it's summer. Maybe I'll take Mom up there for a cone when I visit on Wednesday.