Instead of staring out my barn doors, watching a family of wild turkey’s gallivant through my backyard into the tree line, I should be shaving a bullet or two off my “Don’t Be Such a Summer Bummer” list.
What’s that? Just what you think. For someone who loves the summer season more than any other, I sure do know how to ignore all its beauty. Not ignoring it in a rude sense. I just don’t ache to hold its hand, run around in it, sleep on it, swim in it, climb anything near it.
It’s complicated. But I don’t even like to sweat.
Closest I get to nature these days is mowing my lawn and playing the occasional nine-holes at the Pines. No rigging banana hammocks to trees for me, sliding on mountain boots, planting my toes into bedrock. Come on now!
But I do envy the active folk. At this hour of meditation, on a Tuesday night, over 15 runners and walkers are participating in the weekly “PCL Run Club,” sweating it out along the Allenstown Rail Trail — gabbing and panting or chasing last week’s performance on their Apple watches.
I was not one of those people. Instead, I opted to listen to Louis Armstrong sing country hits in the barn and meditate on just what it might take for me to accomplish my “Don’t Be Such a Summer Bummer” list.
I know where to start and I’d better get moving. It is June after all, practically flannel season.
See, right under the bridge I drive over each day from Pembroke into Allenstown, all I wish is to be in the water below, basking in the Suncook River. I don’t care what time of day it is. I want to be in a small skiff down among the silence, just floating about, thankful for the time I’ve had, the time I’ve got and the time right now. Just floating.
Yet I never have. Sad really. I’ve worked at the base of a ski mountain for a winter and never skied. Been to Miami and never touched the sand. Spent a summer in Newport and never glimpsed the water.
That all changes this summer.
I hurried a memo to Philly this week to our PCL marketing manager and told her: “Twilight PCL Kayak Ride!! Nashua did it. Floating day-glow lights EVERYWHERE! Gather the troops!
FULL STOP.”
A kayak float along the Suncook River, with or without glow lights, is a must for me this summer. Period. Simple feat to most, yet for me, it’s a challenge. My imagination is often more powerful than my own will and horsepower. Ye have faith.
Three years ago, I turned a cheek to my customized 2000 Astro van. I put her under a tree in my yard and figured she would have disintegrated now. Tough old gal though. I asked a friend to tow her to my mechanic who then told me this “dog is cooked.” I begged him to make her bark “just one more time.” And bark she does, and on the list she went. “Van Run Anywhere!”
For now, the list is short, but my spirits are high. I plan to take in a midweek concert at Meadowbrook without caring who’s playing. I want to watch my dog run on the beach, then drink beer in a beach town. I want to go golfing and not fade out after 11 holes.
Modest goals for sure. But you never know. Maybe I’ll even break a sweat this summer.
Rob Azevedo can be reached at onemanmanch@gmail.com.