Back in Indiana the years always had a definite rhythm marked by school semesters, holidays and the annual capstone of my late May summer-kick-off birthday. Our school breaks were still structured around farm life so we’d get out in early June and return the day after Labor Day. That meant if you weren’t busy helping detassel corn or riding the tractor you had a nearly solid three months of bookmobile trips, Flavorice and family vacations. Right around the middle of August, though, the Country Time people would start running this really cruel commercial about how summer just flies by and is almost over but you can hang on and enjoy the last few minutes of your free season by making up a cold pitcher of Country Time Lemonade. That ad always depressed me.
It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I still get to a point every summer that I think of as “the Country Time moment”. It’s unfixed and very changeable now; I don’t go back to school so there is no date on the horizon against which to focus my sorrows. But there it is, that time when I think summer is leaving us and the carefree days of hammock reading are going away.
This year I’m crying especially foul because I got hit with my Country Time moment on Sunday. July 7th. It’s been actual summer for a grand total of three weeks and already I’m fretting about how summer is ending. This is some pitiful nonsense.
I think there is a high probability that I will take my Kindle out to the hammock for awhile today and just ignore my brain’s insistence on pouting.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
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