Did you know that July 3rd was the start of the 40 day period in the summer known as Dog Days?
The term, Dog Days was coined in Ancient Rome. It was named after the Dog Star, also known as Sirius, the brightest star in our sky besides the sun. It was thought that since Sirius rose and set at the same time as the sun during this time of year, that Sirius added its heat to the sun’s heat, thereby making the days hotter, thus the term Dog Days.
Dog Days are hot, slow, lazy, languishing, stagnate times. Yep, that’s what this part of summer is – Dog Days.
So, last Sunday, after I worked up a sweat in the garden, I sat on the screened porch sipping an icy cold glass of tea. I noticed how quiet and still the world was at midday. There were no birds flitting about or singing and no breeze rustling the leaves on the trees. The air was hot, heavy and stagnate. This sound of silence was broken only by the cacophony of the male cicadas vibrating their timbals into a loud crescendo before the silence again.
It made me think of summer memories. Those lazy languid days when we had no set schedule of things to do.
Summer memories are days of butterflies and dragonflies and catching fireflies at night. It is the drive-in movie theater, and water fights and sleeping under the stars. It is Bible school, and picking blackberries and playing in the rain. It is sparklers, fudgesicles and pinwheels. It is swinging as high as you can go and bike riding and climbing trees. It is spending a week at my Cousin Tammy’s house and her coming to spend a week with me at mine. It is our family picnics at Idlewild and at Shawnee State Park and the big one for all our relatives in our yard on the 4th of July.
When Brian thinks of summer, he thinks of his family’s yearly vacation in Florida to see his grandparents and of spending time with his favorite cousin, Ron.
What are your summer memories?
Your updated site looks good!
Thank you!
Other wonderful vacation memories are of Topsail, NC. Rich & I haven’t been there for many years but what a glorious place! One time we took mom with us to Topsail and she got knocked down by a wave. I tried to get to her but the “rogue” wave knocked me down too!
The cruise we took in 2001 was absolutely the best experience I’ve had. We visited Key West, FL, Cosumel, Mexico, Bahammas and Grand Cayman. I fed the stingrays at Stingray City! A vivid memory is of the water being crystal clear and the most beautiful colors of blue and green.
Of course, the sister vacations stick out in my mind as some of the most wonderful times I’ve had! Love Folly Beach, SC and Colorado!
My favorite summertime memories are, like Carrie, of the old stone house in Johnstown. It wasn’t big enough for all of us, but we managed. One summer dad took us to Shawnee State Park and dropped us off with a tent and Coleman cooking stove. (He was smart – he went home to sleep in a real bed …and go to work, of course.) I can’t remember how many days we stayed but my boyfriend came on his motorcycle and stayed for a night. That’s when my fun began! Shawnee did have a building with toilets and showers so it wasn’t completely el natural. Cindy, you were about six or seven at the time. Kara looks at those pictures and thinks it’s her. Bonnie invited two of her friends…what were their names?? Anyway, we survived …a bit tired and sunburned!
I was actually going to mention that summer we camped at Shawnee for a week! What I remember is that it was too hot to sleep inside the tent. And, the walk to our campsite was far from the beach, so your boyfriend (Geoff) would give us rides, one by one, back to the campsite. I burned my leg on his motorcycle exhaust pipe during one of those trips!
My favorite summertime memory: Spending the very short two or so weeks at my grandmother’s house in PA with my cousin Shani. We would swim and eat bing cherries. Once I got stung by a bee and jumped in the pool to get it off which was too hilarious! And we would climb on those huge boulders by the highway and play on that rusted out old swingset and tromp to the Ridge and stay up as late as we wanted and talked about boys and music and read books and insisted on wearing those silly Lee Press On Nails. I don’t think I’ve had as much fun since. Love you, Shani!