What's good about summer?

Country Notebook

By Rogene "Jeannie" McPherson

Let me begin with how much I dislike hot, humid weather. It’s hard to find a topic dear to my heart this time of the year. Even the screaming of the locust set my teeth on edge. My recent experience with high UV sunrays has not sweetened my summer disposition.

As a fair-skinned red-headed tomboy, before the invention of sunscreen, I had my share of childhood sunburns.  So much so that I have dermatology appointments regularly, and they are likely to get even more routine when my doctor hears about my latest act of stupidity. 

It was a reasonably cool Monday morning when the cloud cover was thick with brief summer rains throughout the morning. For the wrinkles on my face, my morning routine consists of applying a moisturizer with sunscreen whether I am working outside or not. Thus my face was protected and as soon as the rain stopped, I reminded myself I needed sunscreen on my arms and legs. But as I told the ER doctor, I compared my forgetting to apply sunscreen to how an aging person walks into a room to retrieve something and by the time a few steps are taken, there is no recall of what is being sought. I just didn’t have the recall for what was needed from the house.

Even though I worked in the shade part of the afternoon, when the sky cleared the sun was obviously more intense than I realized. Nighttime revealed the extent of the redness. By morning, blisters had begun on all exposed areas of skin with fluid building up within the blister within minutes, not hours as one might have expected. For nearly two weeks, when I put pressure on my legs the throbbing pain was easily a 10 on the scale on which we rate our pain. In other words, it was off the chart.

The good news was that the pain level subsided significantly when lying in bed with out-stretched legs while reading a good book or sleeping. And, I thought about ice cream and how wonderful it would be to have a container to place on my swelling legs instead of a bag of frozen peas as recommended by the nurse. 

 I rarely have ice cream in the house, for obvious reasons, but I did the next best thing and let my mind wander. Years ago when small town stores were open on Saturday night, the entire family shopped for groceries and other essentials. When time to gather for home, we piled into our powder blue Rambler,  circa about 1960, and drove to the drive-in for large soft-serve ice cream cones for 5 cents each, chocolate or vanilla or a mix of the two flavors.  Obviously my long-term memory still works.

Now that my capacity to walk has improved, I’ve taken in a few events at the Linn County Fair reminding me of my own 4-H experiences.  The county fair was much anticipated.  For those in 4-H, we worked diligently to train cattle, bake sweet goods, can produce, make posters, and sew garments.  Now that I see young people excited about the fair, packing their backpacks for a new school year and practicing a sport for Friday night games, I realize summer is designed for those young at heart.

I just hope all those participating in summer events put on sunscreen. Sunscreen really does work. And, that’s all I have to say about summer. Bring on fall.