START OF SUMMER MEME

Well, it has finally happened. I’ve been memed by Toby Brown over at The Classical Presbyterian.

The Start of Summer Meme

1.) What first tells you that Summer is here?
2.) Name your five of your favorite distinctively Summer habits or customs.
3.) What is your favorite smell of Summer?
4.) What is your favorite taste of Summer?
5.) Favorite Summer memory?
6.) Extreme heat or extreme cold? Which would you choose and why?
7.) What books do you plan to read for the season?
8.) How does the Summer affect your faith? Is it a hindrance or an ally?

Here goes:

1. That warm, grassy smell—with some freshly mown alfalfa thrown in, if possible—that hangs over country that has been baked all day. It is subjective, but there is that one evening each year when I step out on my deck, take a deep breath, and say “Summer’s here.”

2. Firing up the grill most nights of the week.
Sitting on the deck listening to the Phillies and/or the Cardinals (a benefit of XM Satellite radio)
The first firefly hunt of the season
The annual neighborhood trip to see our nearby double A ball club play in Reading.
The weekly Friday night gatherings at the head of one driveway or another and not getting into the house until 10 or 11.

3. Tie: fresh cut hay and the smell of the rain during a thunderstorm.

4. Tie: sweet corn grilled in the husk and fresh tomato slices.

5. Summers in my home town (Stanberry, Missouri). It was quintessential America in the 1950’s and early 60’s.

6. I’ll take the heat any time. As an infantry officer, I got to experience both. There is nothing more miserable in my book than being so cold that it seeps into your very bones. Plus, there is no snow in the Summer. As my Grand Dad used to say, “No one ever died of a heart attack shoveling sunshine.”

7. Re-read Romans to prepare for Senior High Sunday School
Newt Gringrich, Winning The Future
Newt Gingrich, Real Change
Complete J.J. Norwich's three volume history of Byzantium
David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter
Re-read Lloyd Lunceford’s A Guide to Church Property Law.

8. Summer neither advances nor hinders my faith, although I do like to take my Senior High class outside occasionally and it is a break for them. Additionally, I admit that it is easier to lay in my deck hammock and wonder at His universe when it is warm. (I have been out there on a cold January evening, too, but summer is easier.)