Summer Time Reading

            Warm sunny day, cool breeze in the shade, glass of ice tea and a lounge chair. What do all of these things lead to? The perfect spot to escape into a good book. To me summer is a time to rejuvenate and store up brain energy for the coming months.

When I think back to when I was growing up on our family farm, some of my fondest memories involved escaping to a secret spot to read. After doing my chores I would head up the hill through the prune orchard and down the other side into a tree lined gully. There under the overhanging limbs of a wild quince bush was the perfect spot to hide out and read. The entrances into this little secluded spot had been made by either our sheep or deer as they made their way along a time worn path that meandered through the trees. I can remember bending low and entering this little oasis where the temperature was always cool and little beams of sunlight filtered through the leaves. This was the perfect spot to get lost in my book because it was far enough from the house that I couldn’t hear if someone called my name, but it was close enough to get home quickly if I heard the “get home now whistle”.

Today I don’t have to worry about finding a secret reading spot where I can hide to avoid being given extra jobs. Instead my reading oasis is right outside my back door. I have traded the hard packed ground for a comfy lounge chair with a beautiful view of our flowers and small raised garden. Listening to the birds chirp and feeling the cool breeze as I lose myself in whatever book I am reading at the moment is one of summer’s blessings.

Toothless Week

Why is it the older that you get the more you look back to the past? This last week, now known as “The Toothless Week,” brought back many memories for me. On Tuesday, I took my daughter to have her wisdom teeth pulled. While I was sitting in the waiting room during the procedure, I thought back thirty-five years to the day when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. It was July 3, 1976 and I had just started my rotation of four days off after having worked ten days on Yellow Butte Fire Lookout. This wasn’t how I had envisioned celebrating our country’s 200^th birthday, but I am sure that when my parents had scheduled the appointment they weren’t thinking anything other than getting it done before I had to head back to college. I remember lying on the living room couch watching all the parades, concerts and firework displays on TV. Of course my face looked like a big round balloon and my best friend was the aspirin bottle! I’m fairly certain I was alone as the rest of the family was probably working at the Freez-Ett Drive-In that we owned. It would have been a big weekend for us with the holiday traffic and people stopping for ice cream, hamburgers and fries on the way back from the beach. 

Just like all those years ago when I rested for four days and then headed back to work on the fifth, my daughter Kate did the same. Only she had to go back to work at a restaurant, trying to ignore the fact that her cheeks were still swollen and smiling when people commented on her appearance. At least the only one who saw me was the fire ranger as he drove me up the mountain and the rabbits and squirrels that lived in the underbrush around the lookout. Somehow I don’t think it mattered to them that I still looked like a chipmunk.