Tired of summer?

I passed a scummy pond that had become as green as a crayon, what with stagnant water, little rain, and the stink of rank, August days. Going out of the house at dawn these days has been like walking into a humidor that stores old meat. Then I thought about what's coming.

Dreary gray skies, an endless scrim of snow and mud, darkness and rain and ice. Yippie!

An optimistic chap would think of the advantages of each season. Spring's refreshing rain! Summer's balm of warmth! Fall's wild, colorful parade! Winter's crystal, bracing breeze! But I tend to see the year as a round of sogginess, burns, humidity, slipperiness, freezing, and misery. Yes, something to hate at all times of the year. What an ungrateful slob I can be.

I do understand people who have retired to the south saying that they miss the change of seasons. When you grow up within a temperate zone, your eyes come to hunger for the next season. A friend of mine who spent a couple of years in Quito said, "You can get tired of the perfect weather." Enough of this dull green sward, this blinding sun! Bring on short days and mounds of snow!

I think the great Lileks once wrote that in Minnesota, seasons hang on just long enough to overstay their welcome, and there's something useful in that. If the seasons must change, it's better that we are happy greet them.

Seems like there was a time we felt that way about the seasons of our lives, too, but maybe that's just wishful thinking of the past. After all, St. Paul might have noted that when he became a man he put away childish things, but perhaps he thought of that because he saw men not putting away childish things. It'd be like thinking you could hold on to spring forever. If it doesn't ripen to summer, it will choke to death.

This comes from a guy who likes cartoons and PBJ, so take it with whatever grains of salt you wish.