Today I have had two brief conversations with friends regarding summertime. My buddy, Jeff, wanted to know how the ‘Old Guy’ was holding up in the humidity and heat. I responded that I preferred lukewarm…and he replied, ‘Like bathwater.’ Indeed I have never been a fan of summer but I have learned to appreciate it as it is a full fourth of our year. I remember no air conditioners in the house that I lived as well as no AC in the cars that I drove. It was so hot and humid even at night…that sleep alluded me…and I was a kid who could sleep 10 hours without realizing that the time had passed…until I awakened. My step-father, Earl, told me to crack my window just a few inches and he would place a box fan in the kitchen window and put the settings on exhaust to facilitate cool air coming in through the 5 inch opening of my bedroom window. As I placed my face directly in front of the crack…I awaited the cool air. None was forthcoming…and I finally fell into a fitful and unrestful sweaty half-sleep. A welcome respite was a rain storm that would drop the temperatures several degrees and that came with its own cool wind. But as most summer rains…it was temporary…and then returned the more humid and hotter heat of a night in Little Egypt.

A Belair 1957 Convertible is a pleasure to ride in at any stage of your life. Nothing was more fun than mom and I and my cousin, Brenda, and my friend, Jackie, loading up into our Chevrolet and letting the rag top down and enjoying our hair flying and the the feeling of total abandon and carefree as we made our way to Pounds Hollow Pond to swim. Pounds Hollow had the longest stone stairway from the parking lot to the picnic area and bathhouse. We would pay a few cents for a metal basket to place our clothes in and proceed to the changing room. The grassy beach was on a hill facing the cool and inviting water. Once in the water…I was transported to another world. No longer did I notice the oppressive heat of a Southern Illinois summer…it was replaced with the cool environs of the Hollow’s lovely lake water. Pounds Hollow was a timeless experience. I was never a strong swimmer…but I loved to float. If you have eve floated you know that your ears are in the water and you can not hear most of the sounds around you. The Pond had a safety rope for we swimmers to not cross…but when I was floating…I crossed all the way to the far bank of the body of water. It really was just me and the water…being one…

Nice, France is a lovely old city. During our month in Europe in 2014 we spent a week with our dear friends, Margo and Jeff. We did a lot of walking…and it was hot…Mediterranean sun… I became more tanned by the day. I decided that I required a hat. I had forgotten to pack one of mine for the journey. As a part of our many walkabouts we searched for hats. Finally we found a hat store where MJ and I both purchased a French bonnet. Mine was a bit of a bucket hat. It was white and possessed a little brim on the front and curled up in the back. MJ bought a hat with a large brim and a wonderful blue color. It looked very French…and she appeared to be a French girl wearing her new headgear. Our friends flat was very near the ocean and we walked up and down the promenade on a daily basis. The beach was comprised of stones…not for the barefooted. Jeff and I enjoyed many cigars along the popular walkway. I wanted he and I to experience a Cohiba Cigar from Cuba. Although there was an embargo on them in the United States…they were freely sold in France. And, so, I purchased 4 for us and we lit up. Jeff looked at me with a look of pain and illness as he puffed away. I subsequently took a long drag on the famous and prized cigar that had been expensive…but nothing to good for my lifelong friend…and it tasted terrible… After a while Jeff asked if I minded if he did not finish his…and I agree that something was amiss with the tobacco.

Rome in 2011 was hot. We had all been a part of my and MJ’s retirement cruise. Our plane had landed at Leonardo Da Vinci airport and Bob’s Limo Service took us to our Hotel Monte Carlo. I had worn my flat Irish Woolen Cap that I purchased in St. Charles, Missouri a few years prior. It was hot and my head was subsequently hot…and a bird pooped on my hat on the first day of our Rome walking tour after we had returned to the city following our Mediterranean Cruise. The Cruise had afforded us a lovely lunch with Margo at Nice as a part of a land excursion. She and MJ and Jonathon enjoyed some Gelato at a nearby stand before we had to return to our ship. We travelled from Rome to Assisi, which is the home of St. Francis, and it was scorching hot. There was a lovely couple on the bus with us. The gentleman was from Brooklyn, New York and the lady from Israel and a former member of the Mossad. They bought us wine at our luncheon and I had to scurry to buy the lovely lady a pastry at Assisi. Our tour guide was tired. He spoke to us in three languages on the many hours of bus riding…but when we got off the bus to climb an extremely long hill to tour an old church…he told us that…’There is the church…I will be under the tree….’ A woman from South Africa berated our guide…non-stop to Assisi and back to Rome. She told him that she had overseen the tours for all of South Africa…and that he was doing it wrong… Our deflated guide simply replied, ‘Madam…Madam…Madam.’ In Tunis, Tunisia I had tipped our wonderful tour guide a 10 Euro note. MJ instructed me that we were not made of money and that I would have to leave no more than half of my over generous tip from now on. When we departed the bus…after our long journey and the added benefit of the constant haranguing of our tired and deflated and defeated tour guide….MJ gave him a 10 Euro note…she noted that she felt sorry for him…

Well, I dropped off the old television set this morning at Southern Recycling in Carbondale. We had it 7 or 8 years…and it died…or as the New Zealand actress Fern Southerland often said in the detective series we watched that was set in New Zealand… when she came upon another dead body…’He’s deed.’ I telephoned the owner of the Recycling establishment and asked him how I should deliver the ‘Deed television?’ He said just pull into the building and leave it…’You give us nothing and we give you nothing.’ I then understood as I have been party to such an arrangement on several occasions. Still, I felt a bit like a unsavory person leaving my junk on another persons doorstep.

Years ago, before I retired, MJ told me that for my birthday that year I could purchase several vintage toys that I had enjoyed as a child. She had often heard my lamentations regarding my mom burning… in the prescribed burning barrel…all of my toys and comic books and even vinyl records after I moved away from home at the mature age of 17. Now to give mom her due she did tell me on more than one occasion that I should come to Eldorado and retrieve my childhood treasures or she was going to dispose of them. I had the Western Action figures of Johny West and his sidekick Chief Cherokee. I possessed the army soldier, Stony, who was a knock off of the more popular GI Joe figures. I had a detective with multiple disguises. My buddy, Jackie, had my most coveted Action Figure, Daniel Boone based on the actor Fess Parker who portrayed Mr. Boone on a weekly television series. I could not find Daniel Boone at the Ben Franklin Dime Store. He was similar to my army man, Stony, in that his legs were in a fixed position and not like the fully articulated GI Joe figures. So I set about ordering not 1 or 2 but 3 Daniel Boone figures from EBay. They were not cheap. They were for retail sale in the early 1960’s. That is when I wiled away many Saturdays with my friend Jackie Brooks at his home in Parrish Addition in Eldorado, Illinois. Jackie knew that I wanted to play with his Daniel Boone action figure. He withheld him from my hungry grasp. He looked just like the actor, Fess Parker, and I was amazed at the resemblance. My cousin, Billy, had a Rifleman figurine riding a horse…that I coveted because the Rifleman was fashioned after the actor who portrayed the Rifleman…Chuck Connors.

Jonathon revealed to me, last night, that my prized Daniel Boone action figure was broken. He had lost an arm and the arm was broken. We feared it was the house cleaners…but accidents happen. Today I glued his arms onto his body and his broken wing back together. He is almost 60 years old. We folks in our 60’s require repairs and mending. Daniel has followed me for the majority of my life…we old folks have to stick together…

Mike Hazzard is the name of action figure with many disguises from the 1960’s. He is on sale on Ebay for $449.00. I have been collecting the small GI Joes at Electric Larry’s here in town. They hale from the 90’s. Today I ordered from Etsy an antique GI Joe from the 60’s. I love vintage and antique toys…

It has been a lovely 4th of July. Yesterday was Rib Eye steaks and MJ’s, ‘To Die For,’ baked beans. Today was pizza from Quatros…which is always a delight. It sounded like a genuine battle outside our house last evening as the fireworks were detonated in loud succession. As I watched some of the holiday festivities in Washington D.C. I was reminded of what a difference a year makes. If our Pandemic has taught us anything is has taught us that nothing is guaranteed. Freedom of travel and celebration and assembly…can be altered by the fear of death from a horrible virus. The poor of the land have always known that life is frail and tenuous and as Thomas Hobbs in his Leviathan, ‘No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’

So, we cherish our lives and they have become sweeter as we see them through the prism of what they were and could be again. I heard the singer, David Crosby, say that when there is so much information to assimilate it is difficult to synthesize it to a useful product. However when much of the static of modern life is removed we tend to focus more clearly on what matters for our happiness and peace of mind.

Sameness and repetition tends to dull our senses to the reality that our lives can changes in the blink of an eye. But…just like they sometimes change for the worst…they also change for the better. We find ourselves in such a wonderful world…that is full of love and laughter and real experiences and not…canned laughter. If you are a television viewer you have heard canned laughter. This is laughter that is added to comedies and other programs to facilitate the illusion that there is a studio audience that is laughing at the comedic activities and hijinks. At times we have our own form of canned laughter that governs our actions and lives. We like to run with the crowd and be a member of the gang. To stand out and to be different is painful to our innate sense of fitting in and not making waves. We hear the canned laughter all around us in our daily lives and we laugh along…without understanding the joke…

Freedom of thought and purpose and religion and speech…are some of our most precious values…until they do not mesh with the governmental or religious or academic power structure. There is a Quantum Physics theory that we are all members of a computer program and therefore are busily going about our assigned roles in the desktop game of Earth and its inhabitants. Perhaps that is where deja vu comes from….old players that have been assigned new roles…and we still have a dim memory… Alexa from Amazon…according to news reports…has been waking people up in the morning….with a hideous laugh…

Last year at this time…we were peering out of our windows and hiding from our Pandemic. We not only did not gather for a traditional 4th of July but also Labor Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas…and that is the big one for us. What a difference a year makes. Traffic is in full force and the grocery stores are full of happy customers. I am going to bring down from our loft our Uncle Sam statue made by the artist Tom Clark…and display it proudly. Sunday we are cooking on our grill Rib Eye Steaks and enjoying the freedom of living without the pervasive fear of Covid 19.

Our church opens it’s doors to the congregation and the public for the first time in 16 months…this Sunday. This is probably my biggest joy for this 4th of July. For the term of the Pandemic our little congregation has weathered the storm with grace and dignity and dedication to attending Zoom Church. Pastor Kerry and the Session have been steadfast in facilitating the worship of First Presbyterian Church @ Carbondale with wit and ingenuity and love for the people of our faith community.

As a youngster I could procure snakes and sparklers and little else in Illinois due to firecrackers being against the law. However, there were always some to be had…if you knew the right people. Also, Cherry Bombs and M80’s and other dangerous noise makers for the holiday. We would usually watch the town fireworks display from my Grandma Askew’s front porch. She had a bird’s eye view of the Starlight Drive Inn…where the show was displayed. We would look on with dismay and marvel at the brilliant fire show in the sky. I do not recall pondering the birth of our nation…but I thought that the fireworks were very cool… The 4th of July seems to me to be the mid-point of summer. Of course it is not…but summer seems to slip away quickly after the 4th. Really, the measure of the rulers that we use to determine the length of our human celebrations and holidays…are all short. It is no doubt due to the fact that our time in this life…is not long. Everyday is a holiday if you are alive and have your health and someone who cares about you.

I throughly enjoyed spending many 4th of July holidays with by buddy Ron and his family. He always went all out to make us feel welcome and and I recall his supreme effort to ensure that his daughter, Tara, was having an enjoyable time and that the fireworks show that he was in charge of…was to die for… One fact that was crystal clear to me on each 4th when we visited Ron and Mary Jane…was that they adored their daughter and our niece…and their love was palpable.

We are the destination for the persecuted and the oppressed and the, ‘Wretched refuse of your teeming shores,’ we are the sanctuary for the marginalized and the unwanted and those who have no voice… Every time that I hear the Star Spangled Banner…tears come to my eyes… Liberals and conservatives…both love this country…and we will both celebrate the many gifts of our shared nation…this Sunday…