22 Aug 2009
Summer has a peculiar way about it. It takes its time in getting here and then gets out of town as soon as possible before people realize it is gone. This has happened this year for me.
I have waited all winter and spring for summer to get here. Now, just as I am getting adjusted to the good old summertime it is about to move on. Consequently, I would like to put in a protest. People are protesting about everything these days so I want to put in my protest about the fading summer.
My protest goes along these lines. I have not finished doing all I wanted to do during the summer this year. I have a whole lot of things that still need doing before Mr. Summer goes tripping off to wherever he goes. Summer should not be allowed to end until all our summertime fun is concluded.
My suntan, for example, is not exactly where I want it. I need at least one more month to get it to where I will be happy with it. I like my suntan to be deep enough to last me the entire winter. As my suntan stands now, it will be gone by Christmas time. What kind of businesses that?
I took my protest to the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage to get some sympathy. Getting sympathy from her is like getting a bark from a cat.
Knowing that, I still drifted in her direction. Who knows? Miracles sometimes do happen. I can imagine Moses' wife, when he came to her and said he was going to part the Red Sea. "Moses," she might have said, "quit talking foolish and start acting like a man."
I would like to have been at the Moses' household the next morning after parting the Red Sea. Being a humble man, I am sure Moses did not say much to his wife. He just looked at her and smiled. I like those kinds of smiles, but I rarely get to flash them.
"I'm not ready for summer to end," I protested to my wife. "I haven't done half the things I've wanted to do this summer."
"I know," she said rather sarcastically, "the half you haven't done are the things I've been trying to get you to do for the last three years."
She obviously is looking at a different to-do-list.
Ignoring this slam to me, I continued, "I'm not ready for the summer to be over. My suntan is not where I want it to be."
"You do know," she said, "in order to get a suntan you need to be in the sun for more than three minutes at any given time? Why don't you go out and mow the backyard and see if you can get a suntan?"
Well... I could. But where's the fun in that? Summer is not the time for work. Everybody knows that. Everybody, that is, but my wife.
Many things did not get done this summer. I wanted to take a few days off this summer and go fishing. Man, I haven't been fishing for years. I thought I might have some time this summer to go and try my luck.
I wanted to spend a few days on the beach, just enjoying the sounds of the ocean. There is nothing more relaxing than sitting at the beach listening to the waves.
I also wanted to take a few days off the summer and visit some friends up north I have not seen in years.
I had all these plans and here it is, the end of the summer and nothing to show for it.
Is it just me or does time seem to go by quicker? Somebody needs to check this out; are there still 60 seconds to a minute, and 60 minutes to an hour, and 24 hours to a day? If I did not know better, and I may not, somebody might have tampered with this whole time sequence. Maybe, somewhere along the line, some Internet nerd fiddled with time reducing it to 58 seconds to a minute.
This may explain many things I have been wondering about.
For example. Why is it that I no sooner get to sleep then it is morning already? If I were a swearing person, I would swear somebody took a few hours out of my sleeping habits. I am not getting all the rest I used to get just a few years ago.
There is also my day off. There was a time when every day had exactly 24 hours in it. However, lately, I have noticed that when I take a day off to relax and just have fun there seems to be only 18 hours at the most, if I am lucky.
Is this the work of Mr. Summer? Is this the reason he sneaks out of town so quietly and quickly because of all of this damage to my time he has been doing?
Time is a very persnickety thing. King Solomon wrote, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;" (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 KJV).
I cannot do anything about the passing of summer. I simply plan to have the time of my life this fall and winter.
Rev. James L. Snyder
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