Rant #2,399: Here Comes Summer

I know that I am putting the cart before the horse by proclaiming this today, but tomorrow is the first day of summer.

Read on, and you will find out why I am jumping the gun a bit.

The first day of summer wavers from year to year. Sometimes it is, actually, today, and in other years, it is tomorrow.

And tomorrow is also the longest day of the year, with sunlight visible in my part of the world past 8 p.m. or so.

However, if I remember correctly, the first day of summer last year was a rainy day in these parts, and is pretty much always a rainy day, so we don't get to experience the longest day of the year in its full bloom.

But whatever the case, yesterday I got an out-of-left-field gift from someone on the Internet, something that really came completely out of the blue and made me feel revitalized.

A Facebook friend, someone who knows the old neighborhood as well as anyone does, put up an old photo of mine that signifies what the summer meant to me all those years ago, but he put it up in a new-fashioned way.

Using a photo-editing program that he was literally learning on the fly, he was able to accentuate the colors of the photo and make it look like the picture was taken yesterday.

It really made the photo almost a new visual experience for me, and for anyone else viewing the photo for the first, or even the 10th time.

Just look at my and my teammates faces in the photo--as well as our coaches--and you will see the fun that playing together meant to us.

And as I look at the photo, I see so many of my childhood friends and acquaintances--Arnie, Ira, Alan, Mitch--that it really is a revelation to see the photo in this new way.

Thanks to K.D. for doing it, and thanks for A.E. for supplying the photo to begin with.

Yes, baseball signifies summer, as does vacations and the beach and the backyard swimming pool we have, and barbecues, too.

If the warmer weather isn't here quite yet, it is coming soon, and as I look at the weather report, this week has been a rainy one, but next week, we are supposed to be getting temperatures in the 80s, so that is good as we approach July 4.

I think this is going to be a great summer, and I look forward to the warm weather, cooling off in the pool, and my family's vacation, this year, a driving one where we are going to take in the east coast of the U.S. of A.

So this updated photo simply ushered in the summer in a really nice way.

But we have to get to summer first, and I will get there by taking the day off from the blog tomorrow. This is going to be a kind of tough weekend physically for us--we have to get things looked at, done and taken care of on Friday and Saturday--and I am sure the doctors will love the business we bring to them during the next two days.

So speak to you again on Monday, for post number 2,400--or is it?

More about that then.

Have a great weekend, and hopefully, we can all soak in the early days of summer the right way, with lots of sun and lots of fun!