While I always try to anticipate the end of summer, I can never
predict exactly when it is going to be over. But a change in
my mood always alerts me that the curtain has come down. Some
years, summer stops abruptly, leaving me in sudden mourning;
other years it stretches into late September, kept alive by barbecues
and a few last swims in the lake, and then fades gently into
fall. This year, in spite of the beautiful weather we were enjoying,
summer didn't even hang around for the arrival of Labor
Day. I've been a bit grouchy and anxious for the
last month, because my summer ended on Saturday, August 18, at
around 11:00 p.m.
When summer died, my wife and I were sitting on hard wooden
seats watching the last performance of the final musical at Buck's
Rock, our son's creative and performing arts camp in western
Connecticut. As the first act drew toward its close, the temperature
began dropping into the mid-fifties. Some members of the audience
returned to their cars to get blankets to wrap around their shoulders,
resembling a football game in late fall. I put on a fleece pullover.
My sixteen-year-old son, who was sitting in the back bleachers
with his friends, came down and suggested that we leave at intermission. "I
don't want to see everyone cry at the end," he said.
But it was too late for that. All day we had been watching tearful
campers say good-bye, like these two hugging girls:
Girl #1 (crying): "Now I hate you. You've made
me cry."
Girls #2: "I love you."
Girls #1 (still crying): "Yea right… I'll
miss you… call me."
All afternoon, the campers staying for the final performance
had sat around in groups on the lawn or walked with arms slung
around each other's shoulders, avoiding too much contact
with us parents who respectfully kept our distance, occupying
ourselves with the displays of clay pots, paintings, and dramatic
leather creations. A few older campers worked diligently to finish
their glass-blowing projects, twirling steel pipes in front of
the open doors of 2,000-degree ovens. They wouldn't be
able to finish them back at school, where glass-blowing ovens — as
well as the luxury of time — would be in short supply.
I passed one frustrated girl who said, "This day with parents
is such a waste. We could be doing things!"
I recognize her yearning for more time to finish things up.
I always have a game plan when summer begins, and I always dream
that I will be able to complete it by Labor Day. This summer
I was going to: 1) spend more time with my wife; 2) go on a strenuous
hiking vacation; 3) see a lot of summer theatre in the Berkshires
and the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario; 4) exercise
every day; and 5) lose ten pounds.
Oh well….three out of five ain't bad. My wife and
I were inspired by terrific views from the tops of several mountains;
we saw a compelling staging of Mrs. Warren's
Profession in Lenox and a transcendent production of Oklahoma in Stratford;
and, on at least one day in August, the scale in my bathroom
said I'd lost four pounds. (Maybe, with a bit more time,
I could have lost the other six pounds and caught more theater.)
Perhaps it is fitting that my summer ended in an outdoor theatre,
watching a camp production of Cabaret. It was a bit unnerving
to see fifteen- and sixteen-year-old girls playing the decadent
dancers of the Kit Kat Club and wearing swastikas on their arms,
but they were fairly modestly dressed and, more importantly,
they threw themselves into their roles with skill and dedication.
A gifted actress played the emcee to perfection, and the production
succeeded. And as the Weimar Republic collapsed into chaos, my
summer slipped away in the dark. By the time the camp director,
Mickey, announced over MASH-style loudspeakers mounted in the
trees that "The 2008 summer season has come to an end," I
was already consumed with sadness. We collected my son and headed
for the car. He hugged one of his counselors and said, "I
can't believe it is going to be so long until next summer."
I couldn't agree more.
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