Heat fed memories click on. Summertime in Pittsburgh, PA. The Good Humor truck. A race to get money for ice cream. The weight of decisions. Buying for little sisters.
Outside all day. Popping bubbles that rise in the asphalt. Riding bikes. Pedaling as fast as childishly possible to get the wind running your hair back. Playing with Matchbox cars in someone’s shady side yard. Trekking to the creek. Attempting to construct dams. Baseball, softball. Sometimes swimming at a public pool. Chlorine up your nostrils. Red eyes and wrinkled fingers. Walking around. Sweating. Fanning ourselves. Seeking Popsicles. Grinning as we drip with watermelon juice running down our chins. Sunscreen? Suntan lotion was used — at the beach or pool. Never anywhere else.
But…don’t ever recall a hundred degree heat. When ninety was encountered, oh my gosh, is it hot. I’m melting. Ninety now…give me ninety all day. We’re talking 113. 118. Sitting inside by the ‘puter. Or reading. Watching the cats melt.
The annual rewind has begun. Not what’s happening, of course. More about revolutions and rotations. The essence, though, is that our daylight hours are beginning their seasonal wane.
Today is Monday, June 28, 2021. Sol’s golden beating began at 5:36 AM, a minute later than yesterday. By 7:45, the thermometer was climbing past 86 degrees F. We expected 110 in our southern Oregon valley today. We’ll get some relief tonight, after the sun moves on at 8:51 PM. The temperatures are expected to drop to 66 then.
I was in a work groove yesterday. Finished wall number three. On to number four this week, completing the great room saga, I mean, painting. Then it’ll be…other rooms.
While painting, I was writing in my head, going through plot lines and character arcs, imagining new scenes, re-thinking old ones, working my way toward a better ending. With this going on — writing in my head and painting the great room (and dealing with the heat) (yeah, okay, I turned on the A/C) — a song from 1970 entered the mental musical rotation stream. By King George, the song is called “Groove Me”. It’s a nice taste of R&B. I enjoyed the backstory of how this song came to be. King George worked in a factory a few feet from a young woman. They saw each other every day, but he was too shy to say anything. He finally wrote this song as a poem to give her. But he never saw her again.
Stay positive, test neggy, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Thanks. Here’s the music.
Heat is today’s word. Heat. Hot. Burning. The valley reached 102 degrees F yesterday. 110 is forecast for today. We’re not expected to drop below 100 for our highs until Friday, when we’ll only reach 99. During the night, the lows will be in the low to mid-seventies. Last night, it was 83 at 10 PM.
We went dancing last night, place Lake of the Woods. Meeting up with friends, we ate sandwiches and barbeque, drank beer, wine, and water, and danced to a band on the lake shore under the pines. Up in the mountains, comfortable temperatures in the high 80s cradled us.
While a friend and I checked out the water, we discovered a bottle in the water. Retrieved it to dispose of right. Sting and the rest of The Police serenaded me with “Message in A Bottle” from 1979 for a bit thereafter. I share it with you.
Test negative, stay positive, wear masks as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
Thursday, June 24, 2021, found the sun’s first fiery fingers combing through the valley at 5:36 AM, silencing the night life, stirring the more noisy, numerous day life. With more thunderstorms yesterday and some meager sprinkles, temperatures fell again. Sol is expected to lift the temperatures back into the low to mid-nineties in our region. Right now, it’s 78 F and mildly humid. Sunset is expected at 8:51 PM.
We have a vacation planned for next month. Our vacations generally rank well with us in experience, and hold up well with memory. Most memorable are the ones that go wrong. Like, for instance, that time that we were living on Okinawa. We took space available seats — Space A is the lingo — on a military aircraft to Hawaii. Had a wonderful time. Space A took us south to Guam on a C141. Dark as hell in there. Seats bolted to the floor, facing cargo pallets and an engine. Box lunches — chicken, sandwiches, candy bars — sustained us. We landed at Midway. The base commander opened the small exchange and showed us around.
Meanwhile, a typhoon (as we called them then — this was in 1983) was churning around the Pacific. We made it to Clark AB in the Philippines (now gone) only to be hurried north. We were trying for our home base of Kadena on Okinawa, but the typhoon’s plans interfered. We ended up in Yokota Air Base, Japan, where the typhoon hunted us down, forcing us to shelter in place. Finally, the storm reversed direction and swung south, freeing us to head home, ending a ten day adventure. Not quite National Lampoon’s Vacation, but a lot of fun. And memorable.
So today’s music is “Vacation” by the Go-Go’s (1982). Test negative, stay positive, wear a mask, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Sunday, June 13, 2021. The sun shouldered in at 5:34 AM with small shafts of light and a few shards of warmth. Bird talk sputtered and fizzled. Cats stalked their kibble and complained.
Showers are expected today. I took one early. Shaved. Washed hair. Temperature is currently 75 F. We expect 81 today. Sunset will come as the world turns at 8:48 PM. Shopping, eating, reading, writing, cutting grass, and very important, drinking coffee will take place between now and then.
My mind is playing Dire Straits and “Sultans of Swing” from 1978 for me this morning. No clear reason is recognized why that song is playing. I was out of the service when this song was released. After moving back to where I’d graduated high school, I bought a restaurant and was going to college. A few months later, crippled by the local economy and dwindling personal finances, I was back in the service and heading west to San Antonio, Texas, on a new assignment. The break in service was a year to the day. I learned a lot in that time. Once back in the military, I ended up staying for sixteen years, completing a twenty-year career. Traveled a lot, mostly the United States, Asia, and Europe, a little northern Africa and the Middle East. Meet some terrific people.
Stay positive, test negative. Come on, get the vax. Let’s get on with it. Here’s the music. Cheers
The Earth rolled over. The sun’s first feeble rays hove into view.
5:34 AM.
“Morning has broken. Like the first morning.”
Too early for nonsense.
Thought processes were engaged. Thursday? No, Friday. June something. Eleventh. Still 2021.
Rain fell outside. The sunshine drooped. Clouds barged in. The heater kicked on. Cats slumbered. He would slumber on, too. What time was sunset today? Eight something. 8:47 PM, he remembered, eyes closed, breathing deepening. He returned to his dream. Better there anyway.
Dream songs enter. “All I want to do is dream.” “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.” “These dreams go on when I close my eyes.” “Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree?” “Runnin’ down a dream. That never would come to me.” “Dream weaver, I believe you can get me through the night.” “Dream on.”
He sleeps and dreams. Awakens. Half-hearted sunshine lights the bedroom. Coffee, he thinks. The list. Things must be done. He heads into the bathroom. Songs walk with him. “Stray cat strut, I’m a ladies’ cat.” “In the year of the cat.”
The coffee pot beckons in the kitchen. Sunshine withers to a softer shade of pale. Let it rain, rain, rain. Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head. The sky is crying.
He sips his coffee. Enter Ringo Starr. “It don’t come easy. You know it don’t come easy.” Uriah Heep responds. “This is a thing I’ve never known before, it’s called easy living.” Charlie Daniels strikes back with “Uneasy Rider”. He needs to write. “Paperback writer,” the Beatles sing. A truck rolls back outside. “Truckin'” by the Grateful Dead begins. 1970. He heads for the other room. “It’s raining again.” Supertramp. There’s a song for every thought. “I think we’re alone now.” “Do ya think I’m sexy?” “You better think. Think!” “Did you think it’s alright if we leave the boy with Uncle Ernie?”
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get that vax.
Sitting on the cusp of June, watching the Earth’s rotations roll on. Today is May 31, 2021, a Monday. It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., making this a classic Memorial Day Monday. Now just add a mocha…
Sunshine’s streaming slipped silently in at 0538. I was there to see it, having arisen to tend the bladder’s call. Mountains and trees hide the sun’s early efforts in my house so there was naught to see but the growing emergence of a blue summery sky. Yes, it’s not summer that, but try telling the weather. We’ll be dry and in the nineties today in Ashland. The Earth’s rotation will take the sun away at 2040 or thereabouts. I can see that pretty clearly from the house’s front.
I’d forgotten about the hummingbird episode of the day before yesterday. Out walking toward sunset, I’d gone up the street a few hundred feet in elevation. Turning from one road to another to go up more affording great views of the valley’s northern side. No matter the season, I engage in slowing down to turn and consider the rolling hills and short peaks. Sunshine lingers on that side. They get more snow in winter. Spring greens are rich and lavish. Sunset brings whatever is there into sharper relief.
While doing my contemplating, a green hummingbird darted down and hovered in front of my face. Edging left, right, vertically dancing, the little black-beak friend seemed to be scanning me. This habit of theirs always entertain me. I speak to them with my mind, saying hello and such. This one stayed for about ten seconds before climbing and turning, losing itself behind a veil of leaves. Hummingbird visits are fortifying. I continued on my way a bit happier.
Memorial Day offers a rich memory lode. Mom enjoyed holidays and made the most of these to create memorable family get togethers. In good years, we headed to a state beach, going early to get good parking and good spots. Food was prepared ahead. Think fried chicken, potato salad. Then there was grilling burgers and wieners, lavishing them with condiments. Make mine a cheeseburger, please, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, ketchup, and mustard. Dessert — we’re talking pies or cakes here, but often also had watermelon — followed. Augmenting these courses were chips, pretzels, and cookies. None of us were fat, though. Besides all that, we played sports like volleyball or badminton, and went swimming. Time was also spent walking around, enjoying the natural environs.
My wife’s family had a different take. Their Memorial Day was Decoration Day, a time to load up in the car and go visit the family cemeteries, say hello to deceased members, put flowers on graves, and remember those folk. Socializing with other family who lived nearby followed. Then, back home.
For our holiday in 2021, I’m painting more of our house’s interior. We’re far from family. Most of her nucleus has passed away. All of our relatives live thousands of miles from us. It’s a low key celebration and reflection for us.
All this memorifying has me nostalgic for old rock. Enter Jefferson Airplane with their 1967 song, “Somebody to Love”. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when asked, and get that vax. Cheers
Just another fuzzy Friday. My I-don’t-have-to-work-day. My drink a cup-of-coffee day. Which makes it like every day, except the fuzzy part. It’s fuzzy with clouds and rain out there (yes — we like rain!) although a few degrees warmer (gonna be a struggle to reach sixty F today) would be appreciated.
This is May 21, 2021. May, and 2021, are storming past. The sun put some light in the sky at 5:45 AM and will take its gift of light and heat away at 8:31 PM here in the valley. The cats are quite ambivalent about it all, going out, coming in, searching for sunshine, hurrying from rain, sheltering from the winds that kick up, meowing at me to fix it before finding an inside place to retire for a few hours.
Thinking of what stage we’re at with the coronavirus, and what stage I’m at with different projects, dredged the ZZ Top song, “Stages”, up from 1986 memories into the active memory stream. “Stages keep on changing,” they sing, and they’re right. We’re at a stage with the COVID-19 crises where the mask guidance is changing, a stage where we’re waiting to see what’ll happen with variants and the vaccine, a stage where we wait to see if herd immunity can be achieved, a stage where we wait to see what the new normal will be.
Stay positive, test negative, listen to the music, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
Sunshine came busting in all ablaze at 5:50 AM this Saturday morning, May 15, 2021. Their twin, Sunset, is likely to sneak away at 8:25 this evening. Between, comes weather. Yesterday’s weather iteration brought us sunshine. 83 degrees F. Clouds. Thunder. Lightning. Cold air. Petrichor. Could today do the same? One never knows with weather. Fickle as a drunk, is weather.
Music today comes out of 1981. “Invisible Sun” by The Police struck a mental chord as I thought about COVID-19 statistics. That connection was made when I thought about government charts.
I don’t want to spend my time in hell Lookin’ at the walls of a prison cell I don’t ever want to play the part Of a statistic on a Government chart
As for COVID-19 locally, we jumped back on for another ride up and down. 7-day average continues falling but then you get a day that leaps back into the forties and think, “Damn. Thought we were done with that.” Mask wearing is the topic. Is it safe without masks? Many declare they’ll continue wearing them while a large percentage immediately whisked their masks off. We’ll see what’s what in about ten days, I think. That’ll give time to see if people immediately stripping away their masks sends us a new spike of cases.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Please get the vax. Please.
At about 5:51 AM on May 14, 2021, the sun walked onto the Ashland stage and said, “Hello. Welcome to Friday.” Birds burst out in song. Cats and dogs yawned. Many people turned over and privately promised themselves, “Just one more minute of sleep.” The sun will continue walking across Ashland until 8:21 PM, sprinkling warm sunshine across people’s shoulders, animals’ fur, flowers, and others who ask for it. Vowing to keep it cooler than the past several days, the sun said, “Today’s high in Ashland will be about seventy-seven degrees.” Polite but scattered applause answered except for one woman who kept yelling, “Woooo!”
The mind channeled a 1975 Eagles song to the forefront. “One of these Nights” made it to number one that year. It came into my head last night because I was thinking about what I want slash need slash should do. I promised myself that I would, “One of these days.” That morphed a little sloppily into “One of these things is not like the other,” because of the things that I was addressing. But breathing in the cool dark air while admiring the stars and thinking about what’s out there, out came the Eagles song.
Stay positive, test negative, and get the vax. Wear a mask? Well, we’ll see. CDC and state guidance is changing in the U.S. Some are dubious. Others are exuberant. I slide the spectrum between the two.
Have an excellent day — or night — wherever you are. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 