Judging by all the buds on the trees outside my living room window, I’m guessing they could be leaves by the time you read this column. That means summer is coming. It got me to thinking about how much I am not a fan of summer.
1/ People drive like fools through the neighbourhoods in their cars and trucks at exactly the same time kids are riding like fools through the neighbourhoods on their bikes, skating boards and them funny roller skates with all the wheels in a single row. I know that not all drivers or all kids are foolish in how they go about stuff, but when foolish kids and foolish drivers meet at the same time and place it is not going to be a good thing.
2/ I’m not sure what we can do about folks speeding down the street in a van or big truck, but I was reading the Town’s Community Guide and I see the Peace Officers is going to do one of them Bike Rodeos. I thought maybe they were going to teach kids how to hog tie a mountain bike, but it is all about teaching kids how to ride safely this summer when all the idiots are on the road. The thing takes place May 16 from 6:30 to 7:30 at the arena. Guide says there is a helmet workshop at 6 p.m. and kids need to know about them what with the way some idiots drive.
3/ And speaking of idiots in vehicles. You teenagers riding up the street six in a vehicle trying to impress the pretty girl in the house in the middle of the street need to stop honking your horn from the end of the street. You look and sound like a circus car full of clowns. If you think she’s going to be impressed by six pimple faces with raging hormones honking like a flock of Canuck geese, you got a lot to learn about women. The guy that pulls up alone in the nice sports car and knocks on the door quietly is the fella she’s going to date. That’s what I did with my 1968 Chevy Malibu SS. Still with the same girl but I sure do miss that car.
4/ Another thing makes me not like summer are motorcycles. Some show on the TV now called Sons of Malarkey or some such and all of a sudden everybody is riding around on motorcycles thinking they are in a motorcycle gang. I don’t mind the young bucks on the fancy red Japanese models so long as they stay off my street, but seeing some pot bellied middle aged guy in a ripped up denim jacket with no sleeves revving up his big bike to impress the same girls as the pimple faces riding six to a vehicle is just disturbing to one’s soul. And it’s loud. Too loud. Why do you need them mufflers so loud. The girls are looking at you like you are a fool. The women too. Cannot much imagine what your wives think.
5/ And speaking of cool cats. I don’t think cats are cool at any time, least of all in summer when folks let them go strolling in the wife’s flowers out front. She spends ages picking them out and planting them in rows, getting the colours just right and making sure there are the same number of the same colour on each side. Her fussing over the feng shui of flowers you have to plant every year is bad enough, but her cursing over some neighbourhood cat messing up her garden’s chi is worse to deal with. What’s worse still is having to go pick up the kitty danishes they leave between the marigolds and the pansies.
6/ And it is too hot a lot of the time. I hate that about summer. And when it’s not too hot, it’s too windy. And when it’s not too windy, it’s raining cats and dogs. At least when it rains the clown car full of teenagers and middle-aged bikers stay indoors.
7/ Come to think of it, there’s nothing like the quiet of a summer rain. If I could hook up the hammock indoors, I’d be in heaven.
