It’s Halloween – summer must be over!

Lest you stop reading at the outset, allow me to state that this column shall not be about Sea Witch or any of our other late-October events. Let us dwell upon this past summer and the things we were able to enjoy which may have been absent from past summers. Allow me to permit you to reminisce about specific happenings, given that there must be hundreds of things which you experienced, especially were we to view all these summer experiences in a totality. We can first dwell upon all the outdoor fun the Cape Region has allowed us to enjoy. Naturally there are the beaches, and the sand and badminton and volleyball and bathing suits. For the more adventurous, there was surfing (although that continues), and water and jet skiing. For the less daring, we had fishing and whale watching, with some dolphins thrown in for good measure.

Regardless of the activity, it was the individual occurrences during each adventure which made the summer extra special. I am hoping that we can recall with joy individual stories which helped to make this summer memorable. Among us there may have been an injury which caused us to become acquainted with a place called Beebe. The author certainly hopes that whatever occurred was examined and cured in a short space of time. In the unfortunate case that a cast was involved, please accept this column as a signature thereon. Staying with the positive aspects of the summer activities, let us dwell upon the special outdoor moments where perhaps eyes or even lips met, changing two people forever. Or perhaps the instant when water and body came into sync for a 4-year-old, and the word swim came into everyone’s vocabulary.

Summer was not just an outdoor event. There were visitors to our homes, some related by blood, others just old friends from our childhood or college. We shared some special moments with these people during the summer months, and with their and our children and grandchildren. Gee, maybe they even brought the family pet with them, although we may not have been particularly thrilled with that decision at the outset. All in all, we truly enjoyed July, August and September with human beings whose lives have meaning woven into our own. Of special note, of course, is that one incident which everyone present shall long remember, and of which we shall speak in the months and years that lie ahead. “Remember that summer when we ...?” Sadly, too, there may be an occurrence which all the parties present might prefer to forget. Let’s hope there were none or few of those.

What is there about the season called summer which makes it so special? Let’s start with the weather, although we had some unbearably high temperatures in the past months. Warm (not hot) weather just makes us feel good. It permeates the body and encompasses our emotions for the better. One cannot take a favorable  moonlit walk on the beach during the winter, although being wrapped in blankets might be interesting. We have experienced the summer of 2022 perhaps like no other in the past two summers (2021, 2020), and absolutely look forward to more of the same, and even better. The reality of our respective future summers will bear out the truth of improvement upon improvement. As dwellers of this vast beach community, we surely appreciate summer, and a summer which is devoid of restrictions of the past. However, we may be still held prisoner by the variants of dare I say, the pandemic.  We shall continue to tread carefully through the fall as we anticipate in optimism a summer of 2023 with double or even triple the joys of the summer just past.

We have been blessed to have been able to enjoy a summer filled with so many exciting events which were missing a year or two ago. Let us be thankful for those small, medium and large gifts which we were afforded in the past several months, as we look forward to a safe and healthy fall. We shall happily allow our hearts and minds to wander into the past months and duplicate within us that warm and wonderful feeling called summer.