Seasoning

Today is what, as a boy, I always regarded as the first day of summer. That must sound odd. You have to understand that I grew up in Arizona, where the changing of the seasons is mostly an academic concern, and at best is something that you bring up during long-distance calls with far-flung loved ones. There in Arizona, it was terribly hot most of the year, becoming pleasant in the winter months. Consequently, I developed a warped sense of things.

I had the notion that spring started with baseball's spring training. We had the Cactus League right in town, and I assumed that it was warming up all over at that time. I knew it wasn't hot everywhere else, but I figured it must not be cold there. Only upon living up north did I discover that snow was still on the ground there at that time. I ought to have guessed that they don't hold spring training down south because they like to travel.

So spring doesn't start at the beginning of March and summer doesn't start at the beginning of June. They claim that summer begins with the Memorial Day weekend and ends with Labor Day weekend. It's just a different set of arbitrary dates from the ones I was working with, which makes them sound not much better. It's comforting to think that there would be sure numbers that we could rely on, but I think now as I get older that I enjoy better the excitement of different start and finish times to the seasons every year.

Maybe we could vote on the seasons. We sure seem to love meddling with time, considering the make-believe we have going on with Daylight Savings (which we also don't have too good a sense of in Arizona). We might also dispense with putting a label on the different weather patterns altogether, or choose something apart from those four names. We might personalize them as we do hurricanes. How would Tom, Dick, Harriet and Susan sound?