Right Wing Nut House

There is something mildly depressing about the day after Labor Day. Summer is officially over even though the calendar tells us we’ve still got a few weeks left - a trick that science and nature have combined to play upon our Midwestern sense of time’s passing. Here in the heartland, the clock likes to take the long way around the dial, or seems to anyway. It is an illusion born of a belief that the pace of life should mirror the miracle of nature’s timetable for the growth of living things; slow, stately, and with due regard for the sacred trust vouchsafed those who tend, till, or simply love the land.

The lines of demarcation between summer and fall are sharp and noticeable. Evenings are already generally cooler than they were just a few short weeks ago. Dawn brings a slight nip to the air, a reminder and portent of what is soon to come. The leaves shake nervously on the trees with every breath of wind, mindful that soon it will be time to clothe themselves in Autumn’s spectacular raiment.

Speaking of clothes, Sue has already gathered much of her fall wardrobe and is preparing her annual couture auditions, evaluating and making her selections as if she were casting a blockbuster motion picture. Which outfits still fit? Which ones are still in style? Which ones go in the box marked “Salvation Army?” Not a clothes horse but born with the fashion sense of a classy American lady, my Zsu Zsu’s good taste (and mastery of the clothing budget) allows her to appear in public always looking like a million dollars.

This year, new lightweight jackets for the both of us. A couple of pullovers for me. A sweater or two for Sue. Throw in a suit for her and a sports jacket for me and we’re done. I pity those men who fail to plan adequately for the annual fall excursion to the mall and end up helpless appendages as their wives or girlfriends race from store to store unable or unwilling to decide exactly what they want. What Sue and I accomplish in 2 hours takes most couples half the day or more.

I experienced a great sense of self satisfaction being able to sit in front of the TV on Saturday afternoon watching the start of the college football season knowing that many of the hundreds of men I saw at the mall with their wives that morning were still there, the feeling of panic rising in their throats as they watched the time, knowing they had already missed most of the first quarter of the game and praying they’d be granted a stay of execution (or prevented from committing hari-kiri) so that they could be home by halftime.

Another tradition that reminds me that summer is over is the annual wrestling match with our window air conditioning units. We have two monsters - old Gargantuas that spit out 17,000 btu’s each. Last year, we put off taking them out in favor of storm windows until November and paid for it with a heating bill in December that brought out the smelling salts. Not this year, not with the cost of energy what it is. Hence, rather than waiting until the last gasp of Summer has run its course, we have arbitrarily set next weekend for the removal of the behemoths.

It isn’t the weight of these Paul Bunyans of the air conditioning world that makes them such a pain in the ass to move. It is their bulk. Their span rivals that of the wings on a 727. One can barely grasp each end at the same time. Of course, you need someone inside and another outside the window in order to first detach and then lift the Colossus, placing the entire burden on the poor unfortunate who happens to be outside while the inside person runs like hell through the house and out the door, hoping to reach the hapless victim before the elephantine machine falls on his foot and breaks a toe.

Then it’s off to the garage where the two of us must lift these mountains of ancient technology over our heads and on to a shelf where they will be wrapped in blankets like some gigantic steel infants and forgotten about until the following summer.

I suppose we could get new, lightweight, energy saving units but then, what fun would I have writing about that?

Yes, the days are noticeably shorter now, the birds not greeting me in the morning with their cheerful lyrics when I arise. I hear them today when I’m already well into my second cup of coffee. The dawn now struggles to appear before the early news and will soon lose that battle as well. Soon - too soon - the endless and inexorable will overtake our memories of anticipation and restless impatience for the days’ quickening beat as summer gives way to fall. Not a happy time. Nor does it quite impart the sighing sadness that we feel when the leaves begin to change, then fall, and then receive their first covering of frost, causing them to appear as whitened sculptures dotting the landscape, ever so delicate and oh so lovely.

Summer may not be gone but it is certainly being handed its hat and ushered toward the door. It is this time between the light and warmth and the darkness and cold that the ancients chose to observe their most sacred ceremonies. Perhaps they too felt the cold hand of winter closing around them and fought to remain in the light as long as possible. Perhaps they just wanted an excuse for a good party. Whatever the reason, we too observe and mark this time as the changing of the seasons once again connects us to the cycle of life and reminds us of our own mortality in the face of the immutable forces of nature.

Change, neither good nor bad, simply is. Get used to it. Spring is a long, long winter’s way off.