Decks in August
Not in the heat of the day do I sit on my deck in August. I go out close to bedtime to let the dog wander about a bit before we both retire. As I sit out there I think about how I used to love to stargaze as a child. Last night the clouds were scudding along and the whiteness coupled with the lights from the city made most of the stars so dim that there were just a few out that I could recognize.
It is getting cooler now a bit in the evening at least. We have had nearly a week of intermittent rain on a daily basis. This is not unusual for August at least around this area of the west. In a week or so the heat will return with a vengeance and stay that way until the end of September at least. This has become the pattern over the past twenty or so years that I can remember. It was not that way when I was a child.
In the late 50’s and 60’s August was always a scorcher. That was when you really could cook eggs in the street. We did not have real pavement then. Either the oil machine would come by two or three times and spray down the dust with oil until we finally got some asphalt. The asphalt was always warm and gummy in August I recall. When you walked on it the edges of your feet got black gunk attached sometimes with little pebbles in it. It was hard to scrape off but no one seemed to notice much. We always went barefoot. I still eschew shoes to this day because of the way I was raised.
Mostly I wear Birkenstocks all year round any more. The number of days when we have snow that I have to drag out my boots for has become so infrequent that I have been wearing the same pair of hiking boots since 1984. Other than the boots I finally let my REI membership lapse when I realized that I had not even bought an air mattress or any other camping equipment. My van is pretty self-contained but I don’t use it as much as I thought I would. Gas is just too expensive to feel like I can go gallivanting around much.
I will take it over to Montana once more before the fall snows start to build up in the pass though. My last uncle is not expected to live much longer. Pretty soon most of the people that I will visit make their homes in the cemetery. There are still reasons to go though. The next time I always say I will drive Going to the Sun in Glacier. I have been saying that for far too long.
Not a lot to blog about. August tends to be a slow month over all. Bush is in Texas where I wish he would stay. It must be damned hot there. It is better here. He can have Texas. Maybe Lincoln was wrong. We might have been better off if we had let the South go.
12:40:03 PM 
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