Summer Is NOT Almost Gone

/but it kinda sorta feels that way, especially when you are six.

bigDrag practice got called on accounta rain. What're we, an arena rock band?

We took advantage of me being in town on a Monday to take Alex shopping for his back to school supplies. He was a good sport about it - probably because we were shopping for actual school supplies and not clothes or stuff like that. He's usually a good kid and does what he is asked so I can't complain.

At one point he said "Dad summers seem to go way faster than the school year. Was it that way when you were a kid?"

Some things don't ever change.

"Yeah boy, I felt that way when I was your age. It's easy to say you should always live in the moment and love what you are doing at any given time, but it is so much easier to love the moment when that moment is at the park in July and not in class in the middle of February."

"Do you miss having summer break?" Alex asked.
"No, because I really do love my life and everything I have to do to have this life."
"Even when you're mad?"
"Yes Alex, even when I seem mad."
"I wish there was a way that kids could make summer longer," Alex said.
"Why don't you remind me of some of your favorite things we did this summer."
"Ok Dad. Going on the Midway (aircraft carrier), going to Mexico and going swimming every day with mom"

(they didn't go everyday but they went every day they could)

Then Alex got a little whinny (my beloved son can do that from time to time): "Aw Dad...remembering all the fun summer things just makes me miss them more. Now I've got to sit here in the car with you waiting for Mom to pay for the rest of my school junk."

"It's hard to deal with memories and fun times and where they stand kid. That's something daddy struggles with all the time. Yeah I wish there was a way to just freeze all the good times and do only the things that seem fun, but life just doesn't work that way."

"That doesn't help," said Alex sadly.

I thought about the advice I used to get from grown-ups about being a kid and such...

"This probably won't help now Alex but people I grew up with used to always tell me to enjoy being young. They used to say that 'These are the best days of your life blah blah blah plus tax'..."

"Why'd they say plus tax?"

"They didn't Alex. Elvis said that. Forget the tax part. I just realize now that when they told me to enjoy being young that all my best days were when I was young, they didn't know what they were talking about. They saw me in possession of something they had, their immediate impulse was to miss that, being young, and they mistook their impulse for thinking that being young was the best thing that ever happened to them and the best thing that could happen to anyone."

"When is Mom coming back? I'm bored," the boy was near the limits of his abilities to listen to my shit.

"I guess the point is no one knows why summer goes by so fast. It might only seems to go by fast especially when we miss the things that made it fun. Maybe the best advice I can give you here is you are going to get to find out one way or the other what is fun, what is worth doing. It's my hope that you will love your life all year round like I do."

"There's Mom! I think I see a dog folder in the WalMart bag. Can we have a dog Dad?"

I'm pretty sure that no wisdom was imparted to my son on this rainy evening in DeKalb, but I'm at least proud of one thing - There's no way I bullshitted my kid through that important conversation of time, space and the ever fading events that make up summer vacations past, present and whenever. I hope when he's older he will remember that his dad fessed up and admitted when he didn't know shit.


If Alex is blessed with children and one of them asks him "What did Grandpa know about the space-time continuum?" I hope he smiles and says, "Grandpa was a great guy, but he was no Stephen Hawkings. He was more like Screamin' Jay Hawkins only white and a lot less talented. But a great guy."