Summer Solstice

    It's summer solstice today, and to celebrate the greatest season of them all, I'd like to look on what makes summer so special.

   Right now, I'm listening to one of my favorite albums of all time (The Killers-Hot Fuss) and watching Spongebob Squarepants while my dog sleeps in the corner. It's 11:03 and I'm halfway through my first Dr. Pepper of the day and I've yet to eat food. Summer time is the best.

   Living this summer life, it brings back the fried-bologna days of my childhood when summer was the ultimate recess, and my days were spent trekking around my neighborhood, building dams and riding my bicycle. Really...I miss those days.

   But so does almost everyone, I imagine (and hope that everyone had a childhood as good as mine to miss). The simplicity of those sultry southern summers to a kid are profound, and in those short three months away from school, kids become something more than students and numbers in desks.

   There's something simply magical about summer. Last night, I was driving along a back road close to home, and I had all of the windows down on my late-90's model Cherokee at midnight, because it was still so warm that I could comfortably do so. The smells and sounds of a small-town summer are irreplaceable. The smell of a fresh-cut field and of nearby cows mingling with the chirps of frogs, cicadas, and crickets is something that maybe only those of us who have known could really miss.

   The twinkling of hundreds of stars in a velvet-black Tennessee sky makes you feel small. The sound of a static-y country station broadcasting Garth Brooks turned to barely audible is the perfect second course to the roar of tires on blacktop roads and wind rushing through rolled-down windows sliding through the air at 45 MPH.

   I took my bike out yesterday, too, and I rode through downtown Dayton at evening and on into dusk. As an orange sun slowly tucked itself behind a green mountain in the west, I was struck with the simple beauty of home. The sounds of cheers rose up from a ball field where kids were playing little league baseball, and the only people I passed were a couple of guys fishing off of a bank.

   Summer is the season of front porch talks that last well into the early hours of the morning. It's the season of late-night McDonald's runs for apple pies and sweet teas. It's the season of choosing cartoons over the news. It's the scratchy voice of a baseball announcer describing the scene in Southern California, where the Atlanta Braves are playing a series. It's orange street lights and the courthouse lawn. It's ok to have no money.

   Summer is putting on a hat instead of showering. It's wearing the same T-shirt for two days and the same shorts for a week. It's flip-flops instead of sneakers. Summer is sitting by the water pondering how great life is, regardless of wars, recession, or gas prices. It's the time when childhood comes roaring back, and Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly aren't as enticing as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Summer is moths flocking around light and deer grazing on the side of the road.

   If there ever was a special day of the year, it would have to be today, summer solstice. The most summer-y day of summer. The most daylight for wiffle ball, tag, bicycling, fried bologna & Kool-Aid lunches, and swimming. And then the night when the small town sleeps and peace can be found on a two-lane in the country. Give me cicadas. Give me stars. Give me hay fields. Give me home.

   I often try to convince myself that there are other decent places to live in the world, but after nights like last night, I'll never believe it.