Christie Lake Adventures | A Deaf Mom Shares Her World

The Kronewitters– A Blast from the Past

I drove to Huzzy lake last week with great anticipation. I had connected with the Kronewitter family via Facebook and for the first time in about 25 years, I was going to see them again. The family was celebrating Andy’s birthday and I brought along a super soaker pump as his gift. Not only was it a tribute to the fourth of July boat parades of the past when we would go around and soak the other boaters, but it was also a gift for traumatizing him as a kid.

In my teen years, I hung out with Andy’s sisters, Tammy and Tracy. The three of us spent entire summers together on the water, sometimes skiing up to eight times a day. In a previous post, The Older I Get, The More Adventure I Want, I wrote about them here:

Then there were the ATV toys that the Kronewitters brought into the picture. They had two ATVs and a Dune Buggy. The very first day that we unloaded the brand-new ATV off the truck, the youngest Kronewitter rode it into a tree and bent the foot rest. That didn’t stop us. Tammy, Tracy and I would pack a lunch and hit the roads around the lake. We explored abandoned houses and got lost a couple of times. We built a dirt ramp in a field and borrowed Tim Brown’s dirt bike to add to the mix. At one point, I had to go to the bathroom, so I rode the dirt bike home and headed inside. Mom stopped me at the door. “Whose motorcycle is that and why are you riding it?” She was not pleased.

Fun was the operative word of my childhood. Tammy, Tracy and I often came up with crazy ideas to pass the time. We did an all-girl pyramid with me at the top. We did three of us on two pairs of skis, with me riding in the back binder of each. We tied ropes around black truck inner tubes which folded practically in half when pulled, but we hung on. We boat jumped (don’t even ask). We attempted to jump over each other with kneeboards–which ended right after I knocked Tammy in the head. We settled for pulling up on the rope and jumping over the rope instead. And one day, we had a competition with another boat on the lake, to see which boat could pull the most skiers. We won, with eight.

(Tracy and Tammy on bottom, me on top)

One day, I drove up to the lake by myself for the week. I invited a bunch of friends over that night and we sat around playing cards. Suddenly, they all jumped. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“There’s a noise coming from the bedroom,” one of them explained. They all jumped again and some of them started to scream.

“Ok,” I said. “Follow me into the bedroom and we’ll see what’s going on!”

I grabbed a monkey wrench and Tammy grabbed a broom and we all crept into the bedroom. I flipped on the light.

Nothing. We all relaxed a bit and then suddenly, the screaming began again. The girls rushed back into the kitchen with me following behind.

“It’s coming from outside!” one of them said.

Another one screamed. “It’s coming from that window!”

“Ok, we’re going outside,” I said. “Jenny, flip on the floodlights and let’s head out. If we all go together, whatever it is, we can handle it together.”

As soon as Jenny hit the lights, we saw them. It was Andy and his friend, Billy. We chased after them but they took off into the darkness.

So what do six scared girls do? They plan revenge.

The next night, we removed a screen in Tammy’s house and crept inside the window. We were armed with duct tape and ropes. We tiptoed over to where Andy and Billy were sleeping and we pounced on them. Duct tape went over their mouth and rope on their hands and feet. We hauled them outside and tossed them into the rowboat and set them loose, minus the oars. We sat on the bank and watched them wriggle loose as the sun came up. As soon as they started paddling to shore, we took off.

Later that day, we held a meeting and declared a truce. They never messed with us gals again.

So when I saw Andy again, I promised to reimburse him for any therapy that he needed as a result of that kidnapping.

“I sure hope you weren’t traumatized by that,” I chuckled as we reminisced.

“I’ve got some duct tape and rope around here to return the favor!” he said.

Tammy and me

Tammy and me on bottom, Tracy on top

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Turning 45 and Celebrating

Last year’s birthday and this year’s birthday– quite a difference! Last year, I sat in the pontoon and had a moment of looking back on my teen years and crying. At the age of 44, I figured the best years were over with. No one was barefoot water skiing on the lake anymore and even the younger generation wasn’t taking up the sport.

Then the hubby sent me a fateful link to Judy Myers, the “Old Lady” who is now 67-years-old and competes in barefoot water ski tournaments. In fact, she’s in Germany right now, competing in the World Barefoot Tournament. Earlier this year, I went down to the World Barefoot Center and met Judy and Keith St. Onge and as soon as I put my feet on the water, I was bitten by the barefoot bug again.

I have been working up in Michigan this week and every day, I’ve been barefooting. I accomplished one successful deep water start this week, my fourth one this summer (one step forward, twenty steps back, but I’m getting there!) Yesterday, I managed to pull a muscle in my back on my second run– I lost my balance on the kneeboard just as David hit the throttle and silly me, I pulled back trying to salvage the start. Ouch.

The best part of getting back into barefooting has been a surprising one. My older friends are starting to rethink the process of getting older and changing some choices– they’re looking ahead with hope and inspiration– instead of the same resignation that I experienced last year. I tell them stories about the 61-, 67-, 75-, 82- year olds that are out on the water. And about Banana George who barefooted at the age of 94. Inspiration is like a ripple: start one and the ripple goes on. The stories aren’t about barefooting, they’re about challenging the “I-can’t-do-that-because-I’m-too-old” mentality.

Next week, I will be barefooting with 61-year-old Joann O’Conner, who learned to barefoot backwards just a year ago! How’s that for inspiration? And to top it off, she has a fused ankle!

So this year, I won’t be crying in the boat. Instead, I’m going to calculate how many Motrin it’ll take to hit the water again.

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The Ghost at Christie Lake

From the time I was seven, I spent my summers at Christie Lake, a small lake located in Lawrence, Michigan. On the weekends, I would go up to the lake with my friend Chris, whose family owned a cottage. Most of our days were spent lazing on the water in the inner tube or zipping around in her father’s boat.

One summer day when I was eleven, my parents and my older brother came up for the day. We were cruising around the lake and my brother noticed a “For Sale” sign planted in front of a cute, green cottage.

“Come on,” my brother said, “Let’s just go inside and take a look. It won’t hurt to see how much it is.”

The next thing I knew, we were unpacking suitcases inside the cute, green cottage. My parents had placed an offer that very day and purchased the place.

While getting to know the new next-door-neighbors, we learned about the previous occupants of the home. The original owners were Mr. and Mrs. Eberhart and their two sons. Mrs. Eberhart had a reputation of being a rather tart lady and Mr. Eberhart often meekly complied with her demands.

One day, the combination proved to be a fatal one. A storm was brewing and it had started to rain. Mrs. Eberhart turned to her husband and insisted that the boat needed to be covered. Mr. Eberhart protested as there was lightning in the distance.

He didn’t win.

He and his son headed out in the storm to cover the boats. As the rain pelted down, they were suddenly both struck by lightning.

Mr. Eberhart lost his life as he fell into the boat.

After a few years, Mrs. Eberhart and her sons moved away and sold the cottages to another family, who in turn, sold it to us.

Hearing the story sent chills through me, but I didn’t give it another thought. My sister and I eagerly unpacked our things in the room we shared. In the bedroom, we discovered an unusual closet with two doors. One door was at eye level and the other door was high up near the ceiling. We had to get a step stool to reach the upper door and found it difficult to open. We stuffed a sleeping bag inside that closet and went off to explore the rest of the cottage.
We spent many wonderful summers at the lake. At night time, I wasn’t too crazy about the room that my sister and I shared. It was dark and paneled in pine, with a single lamp illuminating the darkness. I didn’t like
falling asleep there, especially late at night. I always felt as if someone else was in the room with me.

Every now and then, we would have a guest and have to get out the sleeping bag. This was no easy task, as the upper closet door was often hard to open. A chair was required to reach the latch and it would take some tugging to get the closet door to budge.

One night, while heading to the bathroom, I noticed that the upper closet door was ajar. I shrugged it off, thinking that someone grabbed the sleeping bag after I had gone to sleep and simply left the door open.

The next morning, I woke up and noticed that the closet door was closed. I looked around and observed that no one had used a sleeping bag the night before.

Hmmm, I thought to myself, I must have been dreaming.

During a few more occasions, the same thing happened. I started to wonder if perhaps Mr. Eberhart was actually around.

Oh come on, Karen, I mumbled to myself. Of course, I didn’t believe in ghosts. How silly.

Fast forward, many years later, and my parents hauled away the cute little cottage to the other side of town. They built their brand new retirement home on the same land.
One evening, my father and I were watching TV and he casually turned to me and asked, “Karen, do you believe in ghosts?”

Startled, I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

So Dad went on to explain how at night, he would hear strange noises. He would often get up to check, and find nothing. There were many nights he felt that someone was in the house. He could hear the stairs creaking as if someone was walking up.

But no one was there.

So I told him about the closet door and how I would find it wide open at night. Just at that moment, my sister walked into the room.

“What are you guys talking about?”

We filled her in, and to my utter surprise, she said, “Oh yea, I remember seeing the closet open at night too. It was really weird, because in the morning it was closed. I always figured you closed it.”

And I had always figured she had closed it!

Hmmm. We looked at each other and we all burst out laughing. We figured that Mr. Eberhart was living with us all those years.

He must still be mad at his wife for sending him out in the storm.

Fast forward to this summer. Two weeks ago, the radio in my boat kept turning on. We thought the kids were leaving it on but they vehemently denied even touching the radio. Joe replaced the cables on the battery that week and I had taken the boat to a mechanic for some repairs. We thought maybe the wiring was loose or the rocking of the boat had turned on the radio.

Last Friday, I took my Mom and sister for a boat ride in the evening. When we arrived back at the dock, I made sure everything was turned off, including the radio. I climbed on to the pier and I was talking with my Mom, when suddenly, a light caught my eye.

The radio turned on.

I nudged my Mom. “Take a look, Mom! The radio is on! You just saw me turn everything off!”

We took one look at each other, then at the boat, and we burst out laughing.

I guess Mr. Eberhart has a sense of humor turning a radio on for a deaf family.

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Hey, Slow It Down, Girl

Every once in a while, life hands over a slap upside the head. This weekend was one of those moments when life said, “Hey, slow it down, girl.”

I left for Michigan with the boys in tow. Lauren was down in Texas with Sarah and Joe was still working. The boys let me enjoy my mellow music on the way up while they buried their heads in the laptop. There wasn’t much talking on the way up, we were decompressing from a busy week. Heck, make that a busy summer. The kids were off in three directions most of the time with Mom on a plane the other half of the time. I vaguely remembered a husband somewhere in all this.

On the way up, I thought about my Dad and the ups and downs since his diagnosis of esophageal cancer last summer. Last November, we celebrated with good news: Dad had kicked the cancer on its rear end.

A few weeks ago, he found a new lump. At first, the doctor wasn’t too concerned, he figured it was benign. Dad went for a PET scan and he was waiting for the results the morning we arrived.

Dad was sitting in his chair when we arrived and after a hug, we cut to the chase. “Well, the results aren’t good,” Dad said. “The tests show that the cancer is back and one tumor is heading toward the lungs. But the good news is, it’s still small.”

So another round of chemo is coming up and Dad is determined to extend another kick into cancer’s rear end. I’m buoyed by his optimism and his outlook and I know he has the strength to withstand anything. The other tough blow over the weekend was the news that both of my brother’s have Barrett’s, which means they’re at an increased risk, but with diet, exercise and monitoring, they can kick this too.

All of this which had me thinking about how life goes by crazy fast– and I thought back to a friend’s recent remark about how I seemed to have it all together and have achieved a balanced life. “You need to teach me how you are able to travel, write a book, go barefooting with the world’s champions, and advocate for causes to change the world for the better,” she wrote.

After laughing hysterically, I informed her that my life was actually an unbalanced washing machine on a lopsided spin cycle.

So every now and then, when life slaps us upside the head, that’s when we slow down and pay attention to the stuff that matters: the relationships we have with those around us and the stuff that brings us joy instead of sorrow. One friend reminded me to celebrate the fact that we were given a gift of time since Dad’s diagnosis last year. So I’m thankful that I get to wrap my arms around my parents each time I visit them.

So, over the weekend, I slowed it down. I bonded with the boys as we floated in the lake after tubing. I went shopping with my Mom, sis and a neighbor and we gathered some healthy food for the weekend. I watched Two and Half Men with Dad and told him about my barefooting and wakeboarding adventures of the day.

Don’t wait for life to slap you upside the head.

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Old Lady, Judy Myers, Qualifies for Worlds

Earlier this year, 67-year-old Judy Myers decided that she wanted to qualify enough points in barefoot waterskiing to compete in the World Barefoot Championships in Brandenberg, Germany in August. To qualify, she needed to score 500 points in a tournament.

Dubbed the “old Lady” of barefooting, Judy has the skills of someone much younger. She can barefoot backwards and on one foot, and earlier this spring, she mastered the tumble turn. Back in March, I sat in the boat and watched her spin around on the water–thinking to myself– I want to learn that!

“So, why do we call you ‘Old Lady?’” Keith St. Onge asked Judy after viewing this photo of her in the boat during a practice run. “You look like a little kid living your dream back there!” Judy works for Keith at the World Barefoot Center and when she’s not working, she spends her time footin’ on the water.

In tournament after tournament this year, Judy came close, scoring 450 points. She decided to add a backwards flying start to her tricks to get her over the 500 mark:

After a couple of unsuccessful starts, Judy IM’d me on Facebook: “They’re building me a tower for tomorrow’s tournament.”

Robbie Groen, a barefooter from New Zealand suggested this solution to Judy. Sure enough, David Small from the World Barefoot Center and a friend went to work and built an 8-foot platform out of scaffolding and plywood right before the tournament.

“Oh my gosh,” I wrote. “You weren’t kidding that they were actually thinking of tossing a 67-year-old gal off a tower for some points!”

“No, I am jumping off willingly,” Judy said. “See what happens when you get old and you start to lose your marbles!”

The next day, Judy did indeed jump off that tower and scored 550 points! She’s heading off to Germany in August. Way to go, Judy!

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Barefooting, I Mean, Butt Riding

I spent most of the July 4th weekend on my butt instead of my feet. It was frustrating challenging.

Andy, my nephew, brought his boat up Saturday so I decided to try some deep water starts behind his boat. Andy had never pulled before so I knew I was gambling with inexperience, but I figured he would get the hang of it quickly. During the first start, he went s.l.o.w. I kept hanging on, thinking he would pick up the speed. He kept it going, figuring he’d up the speed when I sat up.

I finally let go.

Round two was better, I sat up and moved over the wake and Andy picked up speed. I had Judy Myer’s, Keith St. Onge’s and Joann O’Conner’s advice running through my head as I placed my feet on the water.

Three point!

Heels toward your butt!

Feet on the water like you’re dropping an egg!

This is how I spent the rest of the evening:

On one start, it was the perfect storm. I sat up and hit the stern roller just as Andy added more speed. I popped up and lost the handle. It snapped into my foot. Can you say, “Ouch?”

I took a break and pulled Andy water skiing back to shore and I decided that it was time to hit the kneeboard so that I could actually get some footin in:

Being the stubborn gal I am, I decided to try the deep start a couple more times while the sun was setting. Bad move. As soon as I put my feet on the water and attempted to stand up, I felt my hamstring go “Pop!” and then:

The next day, my old footin buddy, Marty and his sister Michele picked me up. Marty purchased a new, 100-foot Barefoot International rope and I decided to take Joann’s advice to stay behind the boat and plant my feet there. After another gazillion tries, I knew I had to embrace the kneeboard again if I was going to see any barefooting time.

After that run, I gave Michele the kneeboard and said, “I gotta try one more time with the deep start to see if I can end this on a successful run.”

Let’s just say that if there was a butt-riding contest– I’d win.

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The Older I Get, The More Adventure I Want

Me, Tracy and Tammy

I’ve got an itch. I don’t know what it is.

Last week, one of my co-workers picked me and another co-worker up from the Tampa airport in a convertible and we zipped along the highway with the wind whipping through. Along the way to headquarters, the two guys talked about their upcoming plans for the afternoon. One of them had a Harley and the other was going to rent one. They were going to ride the hogs around Clearwater and up to St. Petersburg after they dropped me off at headquarters.

And dang it, I wanted to go with them. I wanted to ride a motorcycle on a clear Florida day.

Like I said, I’ve got an itch. Forget the usual mid-life crisis solution of having an affair. I don’t want an affair. I want an adventure. I’ve done 15 years at home raising my kids and now I want more. The problem is, I can’t quite figure out what “more” is. Over the weekend, I met a deaf barefooter down in Florida and I learned about Judy Myers, the 66-year-old gal who took up barefooting in mid-life. I wanna be like her when I grow up. So barefooting again is on the list.

I thought I solved my mid-life crisis by buying a jet ski. But the problem is, there’s snow on the ground outside right now. The jet ski is packed away in a shed.

When I look back at my youth, I have to blame my Dad for this. You see, one day, he came home with a boat. He didn’t even ask my Mom if it was ok. He just drove home with the yellow boat that was nicknamed “The Bumblebee.” We took it out to Fox Lake and I learned to water ski in the polluted lake when I was nine. Then he bought mini-bikes. One of the mini-bikes was missing a cover over the motor. I remember one day, me and my friend Lisa took off in the mini-bikes up at the lake. “Watch your legs!” my Dad hollered before we took off. We were halfway around the lake when I hit a hole and my calf brushed against the spinning motor. I dripped blood for a good two miles before we arrived back to wash up with the garden hose. The mini-bikes disappeared shortly after that. Then Dad came home with two snowmobiles. Somewhere, down in the basement, is a photo of my brother Kenny taking off from a three-foot snow ramp that we built in the middle of the yard. I have memories of a caravan of us snowmobiling up to the restaurant by I-94 and having breakfast there.

Then there were the ATV toys that the Kronewitters brought into the picture. They had two ATVs and a Dune Buggy. The very first day that we unloaded the brand-new ATV off the truck, the youngest Kronewitter rode it into a tree and bent the foot rest. That didn’t stop us. Tammy, Tracy and I would pack a lunch and hit the roads around the lake. We explored abandoned houses and got lost a couple of times. We built a dirt ramp in a field and borrowed Tim Brown’s dirt bike to add to the mix. At one point, I had to go to the bathroom, so I rode the dirt bike home and headed inside. Mom stopped me at the door. “Whose motorcycle is that and why are you riding it?” She was not pleased.

Fun was the operative word of my childhood. Tammy, Tracy and I often came up with crazy ideas to pass the time. We did an all-girl pyramid with me at the top. We did three of us on two pairs of skis, with me riding in the back binder of each. We tied ropes around black truck inner tubes which folded practically in half when pulled, but we hung on. We boat jumped (don’t even ask). We attempted to jump over each other with kneeboards–which ended right after I knocked Tammy in the head. We settled for pulling up on the rope and jumping over the rope instead. And one day, we had a competition with another boat on the lake, to see which boat could pull the most skiers. We won, with eight.

Is it any wonder that I’ve got an itch? And my Dad, he didn’t stop when he got older. In his late seventies, he bought himself an ATV.

I wonder if I can con my Dad into buying a motorcycle this summer?

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Fashionable Hearing Aids

I came across a post this morning, The Shame of Wearing Hearing Aids and it brought back memories. I was one of those kids who hid a hearing aid under long hair. It wasn’t until I was in college that I finally wore my hair up and my hearing aid perched for all to see. Kinda sad, eh? All those years spent trying to hide something that was basically a part of me– except I didn’t want any part of it.

I decided to raise my kids with a different attitude about their hearing aids. From the start, we went with brightly-colored earmolds with swirls and glitter. I even joined my daughter in getting matching glitter earmolds. I’m pretty sure I saw my audiologist hold back a gulp when I asked for the blue with glitter when she squeezed the earmold goop into my ear.

So far, no one has had the guts to tell me that I look foolish sporting glitter at my age.

Despite my years of preaching about being proud of those two pieces of technology on their ears, my kids had minds of their own– each of them have made decisions about color vs. minimal color. My 12-year-old recently decided that he had enough of the wild colors and chose clear earmolds at the last fitting. After years of wearing boring beige hearing aids, the oldest went for a slick black pair with clear earmolds. It was now my daughter’s turn for new hearing aids and we sat down to go over the colors for a new pair of hearing aids. Staring at the hearing aid website, I was floored at the color choices. When I was growing up, it was pretty much beige and black as the choices.

I was pretty sure she was going to pick out something cool.

“Look, there’s zebra and giraffe patterns!” I exclaimed. “And look at this cool blue and whoa– that purple! Oh and look–they have this cool see-through hearing aid!”

She picked beige.

Yes, boring, typical, oh-so-ordinary… beige.

“Mom, I’m going to be wearing these hearing aids for a couple of years, maybe even into adulthood,” she said. “Do you really think I want to go to prom with a giraffe pattern or purple– what if it doesn’t match my dress? Besides, I can change my earmold colors anytime I want.”

Yeah, she’s got a point there. Earmolds are $125 a pop. Hearing aids are nearly five grand.

“The beige looks nice,” I said.

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What I Learned from Laughter: Laughing at the Small Stuff

Every now and then, I like to participate in Robert Hruzek’s group writing projects–they’re always a fun read! This month’s subject focuses on:

What I Learned from Laughter.

At first, I thought I would just share the blog post I wrote over at Chicago Moms Blog:

When Your Only Option is a Thong.

When I wrote that one, several friends emailed me and told me they couldn’t stop laughing. I wasn’t laughing too much when I wrote it, because I was overwhelmed at the laundry piles around my house. But hey, I learned a valuable lesson from that episode: do your laundry on a regular basis and you won’t have to resort to thongs. Or worse, commando, as Vicky once teased on Twitter.

When I think about what I’ve learned from laughter, there’s one episode in my life that stands out. When the three kids were younger, I often had days when I counted the minutes until the hubby would arrive home and provide an extra pair of eyes and hands in my quest to keep three kids in one place.

My oldest kiddo, David, was often on hurricane cycle. He would bounce from one activity to the next (like his Mom??) and leave a path of destruction in his wake. I once put the baby down for a nap and left David and Lauren parked in front of the TV so I could quickly go to the bathroom. I walked into the kitchen to find the two of them drawing wavy lines on the kitchen wall. In a matter of seconds, David had grabbed some crayons off the counter and coerced his sister into drawing artwork on the flat white builder’s paint. The artwork stayed on the wall for over a year– because neither the hubby nor I could muster up enough energy to paint over the crayon.

One evening, David was a category five and my patience was long gone. I was just trying to survive long enough until the hubby arrived home so I could hand off the kid duties to him. The hubby arrived home and surveyed the toys strewn about, the lunch dishes on the table and me with the harried look on my face. He could tell it was “one of those days.”

After a hurried dinner, I filled the bathtub up and went to grab towels from the other bathroom. As I walked back in, my eyes caught something floating in the bathtub.

I screamed.

It was a brand new book: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.

I fished it out of the water, wiped as much of the wet stuff off as I could and started to cry. I sat on the toilet and the tears kept coming. Mothering three kids just two years apart had taken its toll and came crashing down on me at that moment. Just then, David came over, climbed in my lap and started hugging me.

“I love you Mommy.” He hugged me again.

My eyes went back to the book and I saw the title more clearly. “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”

I started to laugh.

Alternating between tears and laughter, I smiled at the irony of the whole thing.

It is now years later– the little boy has grown into a young man– but I still have the book with the warped pages stuck together. It’s a reminder of that hectic time of three kids under the age of four–when I thought the day would never end and I’d never have a minute to myself. Today, the kids amuse themselves and there’s a little more time for me. How quickly the time flies, how valuable that lesson of laughter is.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. And remember to laugh in the process.

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Saying Goodbye to Summer

I hate Labor Day Weekend. It’s the “official” end of summer at Christie Lake and it always makes me sad. We try and grab as much as we can out of the weekend and always have to make the decision of whether or not we’ll take the boats out or stretch out a couple more weekends into the fall.

It’s been a rather cool summer this year and the summer was one of the speediest summers I can ever remember. It was gone in a flash. Joe’s Mom keeps trying to tell me that the older you get, the faster time spins. She told me this when David was a baby and I laughed. She said the high school years were a blur. I couldn’t fathom that, because I was holding a little kiddo in my hands and just trying to make it through the next hour with some semblance of sanity and intact thought.

Damn. She wasn’t kidding. Time is indeed spiraling by and I swear, it seems like someone keeps turning the clocks on fast-forward. You know that little baby I was talking about? This is him:

He’s an offensive lineman for Hinsdale South now. In two short years, we’ll be sending him off to college. I don’t understand how he went from being a baby just yesterday to this strapping hulk of a boy/man. I kind of envy the Duggars. If I was smart, I could have cheated Father Time by just having baby after baby. Yeah, that would have been a good plan– you know how time crawls when you try to get through hour by hour with little ones. And then it would take forever before the last kiddo goes off to Grown-up-hood.

But getting back to the weekend, another reason I don’t like Labor Day weekend: each summer that goes by is a summer that I know I can’t get back, another summer ticking by.

So here it is, the big weekend of summer. So rather than thinking about endings, I’m going to celebrate the weekend instead. Join me–not in saying goodbye to summer, but just merely, “So long, see ya next year!”