For a number of summers, I've thought back to the old 60's song by Nat King Cole, "Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer." (Yes, "those days of soda and pretzels and beer.") This is the kind of music I heard on my transistor radio as a "tween" and teen on the Capital District's WPTR 1540, "the station with the happy difference." It was the era of the Beach Boys, Elvis and that impression that even upstate New York could be like California if you just chilled out and went to a beach and ate hot dogs. I was privileged to spend much of the summer in our northeast version, the rocky shores of freezing Lake Champlain. The sky's light was all wrong, as was the landscape, but somehow that impression that summer "should" be lazy and hazy -- with craziness only related to the goofiness of drinking a beer for the first time -- has persisted. For many years, there has been nothing lazy about summers, and with our media access no longer limited to easy listening rock radio stations, we know too much, don't we? We are absolutely bombarded with important news -- and irrelevant distractions -- far more than 50 years ago. Entire populations of people are moving in waves across the globe, entire U.S. states are on fire, political and other wars are heating up. Many of our individual lives seem to resemble a big, crazy kaleidoscope more than the light, airy haze of a West Coast beach. Labor Day seems more like an exhausting finish line, not the culmination of weeks of relaxation.
It's easy to dismiss that song as utterly irrelevant...and yet, and yet, and yet...is there a human being on the planet who does not need a short reprieve right now? It's OK to take a moment this weekend to hold the world's challenges to our hearts, and then strike up the barbecue, or play a game of badminton, or listen to polka music, or take a swim, or talk with friends and family. It just might make the world a happier place for a moment or two, which can't hurt. See you Tuesday!
