Humor

How fast the shades of summer have faded

by James Snyder 
08/27/16
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Am I getting old or his time passing faster than it used to? It seems I just settle down to do something and before I know it, it is over.

Back in “the day,” a minute had 60 seconds. An hour had 60 minutes. A day had 24 hours. Oh, for those good old days.

I am not exactly sure how many seconds a minute has or how many minutes an hour has because he goes by so fast I cannot keep track. Technology has taken over and I for one object.

For example, I like looking at my wristwatch and seeing the second hand slowly tick around the dial. Now, we have cell phones with a digital clock. Unlike these digital clocks, all they tell me is what time it is right now. I like to look at a wristwatch and get a whole view of time: past, present and future.

I know that a week does not have seven days anymore.

I set out on Monday with high hopes of getting something accomplished during the week and by the time I clear my throat, it is Friday afternoon. Where did all that time go?

Years ago, the Beatles had a song called “Eight Days a Week.” Nowadays it is more like three days a week: yesterday, today and tomorrow!

Today is tomorrow’s yesterday and I am not exactly sure how to keep up anymore. By the time I get to tomorrow, I forgot what I was supposed to do today. Then, when I get to today, I cannot remember what I did yesterday.

I used to plan a whole week of activity, now that luxury is yesterday’s news, or is it tomorrow’s headlines?

I like summer, which may explain why it goes so fast. Maybe I should take a chapter from Murphy’s Law and say I do not like summer, then it would drag by a without end in sight.

Interestingly, the thing I like to do the most goes by so quickly, that which I hate doing drags on for centuries. Which has me thinking maybe I should not voice what I like or do not like?

One thing I like about summer, when I can catch my breath and enjoy it, is the fact that it is made up of those lazy, hazy days I enjoy so much. Not having a schedule, not having a deadline, not having anybody telling me what I should or should not do. Ah, those crazy, lazy days of summer.

The fact that I did not get much done during the summer is no big deal. If anybody asked me if I got anything accomplished, I just said, “Hey, it’s summer. Relax. I will get to it eventually.”

Well, eventually has caught up with me and it is called winter.

The difference between summer and winter is that during the summer, you can get away with doing nothing but in the winter, there is nothing you can get away with.

During the summer my wife will ask me if I have done such and such and I respond by saying, “It’s summer, I’ll get to it. I got plenty of time.”

During the winter, my wife will remind me of all the things I was supposed to do during the summer and that now I have to do because winter is a coming.

Summer is hazy and lazy, while winter is “Hurry up and get it done.”

More is expected from a person during the winter months that during the summer. I object very strenuously to this kind of attitude. Of course, this attitude comes from the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. She has the idea that winter, or at least the beginning of winter, is the time to clean up everything. By everything, she is including the garage.

Now that summer is over and the lawn does not need to be mowed anymore, I can, according to her logic, transpose that energy into cleaning up things. Then she will confront me with a favorite saying of hers, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

One of these days, when I get up the courage, I am going to ask her to show me where that verse is in the Bible. I kind of think a person can be too clean, like squeaky clean. You know how squeaky gets on people’s nerves, especially mine.

My favorite saying is, “Laziness is next to everything.”

Perhaps that is why I like summer so much. There are shades of laziness that can only be exploited in the good old summertime.

Some people, like the one who shares a residence with me, things that laziness is a very negative thing. This person honestly believes that if she is not doing something all the time she is lazy. Something good can be said about being lazy. You get to savor a moment of non-activity.

The thing I like so much about summer is the activity you do do is only the activity that you want to do like sitting on the back porch, drinking a glass of lemonade, which is what summer is all about.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, understood this concept very well. He says, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV).

Time goes by so quickly that a person hardly has enough time to really appreciate the time that they have.