Time-Of-The-Year
Time-of-the-Year
I don’t want to argue with all the poets who have given spring a good name but I don’t care much for this time of year.
For one thing, there are just six more days before the worst day of all. Next Saturday, the days start getting shorter. Sunday will have five seconds less of daylight than today.
That’s not right.
The longest day of the year should be at the end of summer when our vacations are over. On December 22, when we don’t want them long because the weather’s bad, days start getting longer.
Vacations are coming up soon now. The best thing about a vacation is planning it…getting ready to take it. Maybe you buy a new sports shirt, a bathing suit or a golf club. That’s the fun of a vacation.
The vacation itself is never as good as looking forward to taking it. Just as soon as your vacation starts, you begin worrying about how soon it’ll be over.
This is the end of the year, too, and endings are sad. Don’t tell me New Year’s Eve is the end because it isn’t. New Year’s Eve is right in the middle of the year.
Labor Day is New Year.
That’s when things begin and we can start anticipating next year’s vacation again. Now, all we can do with this one is take it.
There are some good things about this weather but the effort we make to stay warm in winter is more satisfying than the effort we make to stay cool in summer. Bundling up in warm clothing is a good feeling. You have a sense of defeating the elements.
No matter how little you wear on a warm day in summer, it’s too hot. And then, there’s something wrong and artificial about air conditioning. A burning log in the fireplace is real…even a furnace is a consolation compared to the irritating whirr of an air conditioner perched unnaturally and clinging tenuously in a window.
And vacations are so phony. A lot of us who live in the city go to the country for vacation. People who live in the country often go to the city for one.
City people admire country people and country life. On vacation, they pretend to be part of it by wearing country clothes but they aren’t. They are fake country people intruding on real life in the countryside.
Late spring is the best of times and the worst of times.
It’s best because things are growing. The sun comes up early and doesn’t go down until late.
It’s the worst of times because pretty soon we won’t be able to look forward to the days getting longer anymore. We won’t look forward to our vacation because it will be over.
From Andy Rooney, Years of Minutes, pp. 343-344.
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