What Happened to Summer?

Tonight, I'll host an end of summer pool party for the students in my Youth Group. We'll sit poolside, eat pizza, laugh about memories from the past few weeks, and then go home. For me, it will be a slightly different change of pace for a Friday night, but for them it will like a cell door clanging closed on D-Block.

Their summer will effectively be over.

Once upon a time, I knew what that felt like. To have carefree days that led to who-knows-what kind of adventures. To have limitless hours at your disposal. To have, in essence, freedom. It was wonderful.

Well, it was wonderful if you didn't count the fact that we couldn't drive, which meant that we were stuck in the hell-hot Georgia sun for almost ten hours a day warding off an assortment of bugs and snakes and other creatures that didn't care for us lurking within the confines of their natural habitat. The only thing that made thosee days bearable was when Mr. Ron purchased an old Coke machine and sold drinks for a quarter. We'd go buy three or four drinks apiece and sit underneath his porch and slam back sodas as a way of passing the time.

When we finally were old enough to drive that meant we had to get a summer job, which was only slightly less boring than our non-driving summer days. My first three jobs all involved food service of some sort, and each required a uniform that made me look like an extra from a WWII prison camp movie. I hated those summers.

College wasn't much better; if you were smart, you learned to take classes during the summer because the professors were a little more relaxed and the class sizes were smaller. Plus, that meant you didn't have to work every stinking day. I wasn't one of the privileged who somehow managed to fool their parents into paying for their summer excursions as part of the "college experience."

I tried feeding my dad that line.

"Well, if that's the college experience," he said, "then maybe you should get your butt out there, find a job, and pay for it yourself. We call that 'practical experience' in the real world, and it'll look good on a resume."

I guess of all my summertime experiences, I've most enjoyed the ones I've had as an adult. I got married in the summertime, and as a youth pastor I've gotten to take some really neat trips with my students. Of course, I've also had my bed hijacked and placed in the back of a bus, a bucket of rancid shellfish corpses left in my shower, and experienced the distinct odor of a shy sixth grader who refused to take a shower.

All in all, I'm finding that the summer is overrated.

I'm glad that school begins again on Monday. That means cooler tempertures, football and Christmas decorations are just around the corner.

They can't get here soon enough for me.