Didn’t summer used to be eternal?

Now it feels like 3 weeks, maybe 4 tops.

Didn’t DMV visits used to be eternal?

My Captor and I renewed our licenses in 10 minutes today.

Maybe it’s a product of the time continuum, or a parallel universe, or a residue of DST (Shakes Fist Angrily!), but both seem off…

I can tell summer’s over, because the kids are back in school, there aren’t many people in town, and college football is back (Shakes fist happily!) – which means it lasted just under two months.

The signs have been there for a few weeks: Fewer beach rental tents going up, restaurants not as crowded, though the golf cart rental thing doesn’t appear to have let up (Would shake fist angrily, but already did – don’t want to be stereotyped).

Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but it seems like summer was a lot longer when we were kids – we didn’t go back to school until after Labor Day – but the ‘Agrarian School Calendar’ was pressure packed – we never knew when we might get drafted into farming, and harvesting corn is tougher than algebra.

I feel for today’s kids, who go back by early August – which makes sense, since there’s another 30-40 years of history to learn, and they’re still dealing with the 10 years of learning loss suffered during COVID.  

I fear their summers aren’t as unstructured as ours, as we had plenty of free time – we’d head to the crick to swim, play a little baseball, get some gingham with Mary Lou – actually those are from the Netflix documentary “The Agrarian School Calendar, a child killer?”, but we didn’t have much scheduled.

And it seemed like it lasted forever, until it didn’t.

We’d get our teachers and head back to school, which is what kids today do – they’re just better technologically prepared, their tablets, phones and computers trumping the abacus our family shared.

And our DMV visit a real eye opener.

I had debated waiting until next week to head there – to avoid the ‘end of month crush’, which apparently only relates to moving and club charges – but My Captor’s ‘Let’s Do It Now!’ spirit won the day.  

We hadn’t dealt with our licenses for 10 years, I’d no idea what to expect.

It began with more DMV workers than license seekers. They looked a bit bored. That part hadn’t changed…

But during our 10 year hiatus, technology had arrived: A machine where we entered our information, speeding the process.

We then moved to another machine for our ‘To be called #s’, which oddly were 1 and 2!

From there, our pictures taken for our temporary licenses – an 8.5×11 piece of paper that won’t fit in my wallet, but it’s ‘only’ for 30 days – and off we went.

But a 3rd machine that printed our licenses on the spot would have been great – check back in 10 years, I guess.

There are other things shorter – but some longer – than you think:

I went to the Post Office today, no one was there – so I quickly bought, wrapped our Christmas gifts, and mailed them before the December rush;

Brevity. People go on and on and on and on…

… and on and on…

And streaming series – why do in 6 episodes what you can do in 3 seasons?

And while my days are numbered, fortunately I’m bad with math, so who knows how much time I’ve left? – but I’m resolved to appreciate each day.

I urge you do the same.

And that might be the shortest inspirational close ever…

For 245 more posts like this –each with a wish for more summer– go to beersatthenifty.com. Your phone will display every post, and you can waste an hour or two.

Or send me an email to the site, and I’ll add you to my Sunday distribution.

And I’m now on Substack at justluckytobehere.substack.com. Same stuff, but a different location.

ENHANCE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS POST, PAIR IT WITH THE FOLLOWING ‘AGING HIPSTER MUSIC’:

John Prine was/is an American treasure. I’m adding ‘Fish and Whistle’ ‘Bruised Orange’ ‘Hello In There’ ‘Saddle in the Rain’ ‘Saddle in the rain (Live)’ – remembering an incredible version I saw him play at the Ryman, 7 minutes of incredible aural pleasure – and ‘Summer’s End’, today’s theme. He was an amazing songwriter, who could turn a phrase (“I knew that topless dancer had something up her sleeve”), and there are a zillion songs I could have added – find them yourself. His eponymous first album is a great place to start. The final 2 songs I’ve added are post-cancer John,  in 1998 he had major surgery to remove a growth on his neck, and it took a year of radiation and speech therapy before he could tour again.