God, I miss summer!
Well, the weather report calls for snow. BLECK! I'm ready for summer. Give me 90 degrees and 15 hours of sunshine any day of the week. My best memories are all from the dog days of summer...the incessant screech of grasshoppers during days so hot that the air ripples...the smell of honeysuckle laying so thick in the night dampness that you can taste it...distant Whippoorwills exclaiming "chip-fell-out-of-the-white-oak" hidden deep in the pitch blackness of the surrounding woods...the high pitched drone of mosquitoes slowly descending toward the ground...and the faintest odor of burning rags from some old rusty garbage barrel over in the poor side of town.
Around here it gets so hot the only time a man can do any decent fishing is at night. There's little that compares to sitting in a boat sliding silently across the water following the sweet smell of a bream bed wafting through cypress trees. Every sound and smell seems intensified when those are the only senses you can rely on. Casting a line blindly in the direction you heard a splash and, sometimes, feeling that sudden surge against your rod is a heady thrill. As you reel feverishly, wondering just what is on the other end of your line, you get an adrenaline rush from the combination of sheer genius and plain dumb luck.
I've sat flat out on a river bank during many a moonless night, while the navy blue flame of a burning diesel bucket flickers pathetically and its oily smoke keeps the mosquitoes' assault at an acceptable level. I remember such a night when I sat there trying to figure out the slender dark stripe that appeared perpendicular across my legs. I could feel the slightest pressure on my shins as a snake eased across and then stopped atop my legs. I assumed that my body heat attracted it or perhaps I was just in his path. Either way I'm sure it was his first experience flying as I sprang up as if shot from a cannon.
Basically I guess I'm saying that I'd rather be bitten by mosquitoes and have snakes crawling on me on a sweltering summer night than endure a winter with snow. Maybe it's time to move to Australia.
Around here it gets so hot the only time a man can do any decent fishing is at night. There's little that compares to sitting in a boat sliding silently across the water following the sweet smell of a bream bed wafting through cypress trees. Every sound and smell seems intensified when those are the only senses you can rely on. Casting a line blindly in the direction you heard a splash and, sometimes, feeling that sudden surge against your rod is a heady thrill. As you reel feverishly, wondering just what is on the other end of your line, you get an adrenaline rush from the combination of sheer genius and plain dumb luck.
I've sat flat out on a river bank during many a moonless night, while the navy blue flame of a burning diesel bucket flickers pathetically and its oily smoke keeps the mosquitoes' assault at an acceptable level. I remember such a night when I sat there trying to figure out the slender dark stripe that appeared perpendicular across my legs. I could feel the slightest pressure on my shins as a snake eased across and then stopped atop my legs. I assumed that my body heat attracted it or perhaps I was just in his path. Either way I'm sure it was his first experience flying as I sprang up as if shot from a cannon.
Basically I guess I'm saying that I'd rather be bitten by mosquitoes and have snakes crawling on me on a sweltering summer night than endure a winter with snow. Maybe it's time to move to Australia.
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