summer

They didn’t do this for fun, you know

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‘Summer jobs I did not have. But I swear I did not make them up, either’

When I was a kid, a summer job was babysitting. Or working at the 5-and-10. Pumping gas. My best friend Norma had the coolest job of anyone I knew. She worked at the Dairy Queen. One of the perks was you could eat as much DQ as you wanted, which sounded pretty sweet until she told me she had a hard time even looking at a banana boat after the first couple of days.

But these jobs absolutely pale in comparison to the gigs scored by my personal family members in their respective college years. The Child spent one summer working with computers. ‘Yawn’, you say. Well, these computers were located here:

The Child's workplace one summer. She had her own apartment above the stables. Very Thomas Hardy-esque

The Child’s workplace one summer. She had her own apartment above the stables. Very Thomas Hardy-esque

That’s Wadhurst Park, a 900-acre estate in East Sussex. Which is in England, folks. It’s owned by the second-richest guy in Sweden. (Makes you wonder where the richest guy in Sweden lives.) Oh, and here he is, Hans. The Child said she was invited to tea with him and his wife once while she was there. The conversation was less than lively. Not sure if she met the dog.

Hans Rausing, The Child's Boss and the second-richest man in Sweden.

Hans Rausing, The Child’s Boss and the second-richest man in Sweden.

Incidentally, Hans’ dad made the family fortune by inventing the milk carton. Honest. Oh, besides owning that dog in his lap, Hans owned pigs. That’s one of them pictured at the top of this post making friends with The Child. (In addition to working with the estate computers, she performed various livestock-related duties. Including, sometimes, a bit of pig wrangling. And mucking.) Continue reading

Remembrance of Watermelons Past

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‘A look back at Summer in the town Time forgot (though we did get our Ladies Home Journal)’

I used to think Prince Charles was a total wimp. See, back when I was a kid, we had something called ‘bedtime’. Which meant that you were supposed to go to bed at an appointed time. Not when you got tired, or when you felt like it. ‘Bedtime’ was by Parental Decree.

And mine was 8 o’clock. And this meant 8 o’clock, Young Lady. No matter if it’s in the middle of summer and there’s no school and all the other kids are still outside and it doesn’t even get dark until after 9.

When I would whine about this to my mother by saying something like: “But Mom, I’m almost 13! Going to bed at 8 is for babies!”, she would reply thusly: “Well. Prince Charles of England is 16, and he goes to bed every night at six!”

Gosh. I hated Prince Charles. What a wimp.

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Yup, Summer’s officially over

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Toasted cheese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Farewell BLT. Welcome Toasted Cheese’

When I was a kid back in the Midwest the highlight of our summer was the Clinton County Fair. It was hot, it was dusty. It was noisy, it was crowded. But it had carnies and cotton candy and corn dogs. We loved getting sick on the rides and even sicker on the food. (We also used to have a blast arguing over which high school girl was going to be crowned Miss Clinton County Fair, but that’s another story.)

But the Fair always made my Mom sad. She said it was because Fair Time, even though it was right at the height of ‘calendar summer’ — July, for heavens’ sakes — meant, for her, that Summer Time was pretty much over. I never understood this until I got older and summer started lasting ten minutes.

Anyway. According to the calendar, today is the day Summer is officially over, the ‘end’ being September 21 (or is it 22 this year?) But I say ‘calendar schmalendar’. We all have our own, very personal, ways of deciding when Summer is over, or about to be. For some, it’s Labor Day. For others, it’s when Continue reading