Columnist’s insight on summer reading and the weather
By McDaniel Hartranft, ’17
Mud pies, land lines and sunny skies. That’s all it used to take to create an amazing summer. Excitement came from creativity, happiness from memories and disappointment from when your friends couldn’t come out and play.
What happened to summer? Who and what decided it was okay for kids to grow up, leaving behind the mud pies and to pick up the 467-pounds of SAT and ACT practice books? Summer used to mean no agendas, no practices, no assignments and no worries. June, July and August are supposed to be three months of bare feet, blazing sun, barbeques and the blues.
Yes, I did say the blues. I’m not talking about the red, white and blues of Fourth of July. No, I’m talking about two different summer blues.
The first one is the resurfaced idea of summer reading. Sure, the idea of reading a novel on your own in the summer has been around but now each class is assigned a book. It definitely shouldn’t be a struggle to read a couple books over the course of summer. However, instead of scrambling at the end of the season trying to choke down words of a book that is of no interest, why not read for pleasure?
With college right around the corner for upperclassman, wouldn’t it benefit them to read a book that educates them on a possible career path?
The second summer blue was something that came with large force and intensity: the rain. It wasn’t the typical fun summer rain where you would feel spontaneous by dancing in it. Nope, that got old about the first 12 times. This was a rain that even Bill Kelly, the NBC 6 meteorologist, was taken aback by and showed it by retweeting a picture of the sun with the caption “what is this?” Needless to say, having to sit inside for a large portion of June and some of July was not ideal.
According to Kelly’s tweet on July 13, 84 percent of the previous 31 days were rainy in Ohio. On July 9, it was recorded that 2.25 inches of rain fell at the Columbus airport. It was also recorded that the precipitation was 120 percent times the normal amount for 2015.
Luckily, summer is a time where even problems like reading two books the day before school starts and missing some vital tanning time isn’t that big of a deal.
The best summer days are the days where the 467-pounds of SAT and ACT practice books can be put aside to make mud pies under the (very rarely) sunny sky.