childhood and not so gloomy August days

Today, as I look out on a very cloudy August 4th, I think on the past...

I'm probably 10, it's probably 8am, and I am at my Grandparents' house in Sutherlin. I finish up breakfast, with Grandpa, at the kitchen bar. Cereal for me, creal and grapefruit and a mountain of pills for Grandpa. Barefoot and in a t-shirt and shorts, I run outside. The grass is green and soft under my feet. The morning is already warm, but the breeze is cool. I spend my morning cutting flowers, helping with chores, picking up apples off the ground, being carefree. Before lunch, the sun is already hot, I retreat in the shade of the apple trees. We eat lunch in the shade of the front porch with it's atificial green turf. I like the way it prickles my feet. The breeze flows through and the chimes ring. Neighbors come by to say hi and chat. Grandpa and I have icecream bars together after lunch, the ones the Swan man brought. Grandma and I make fresh cookies which will be eaten by visitors who will come by all week long; the minister at their church, Oddie, friends, a home nurse, more neighbors, perhaps an older cousin or two (all of them are older than I), eventually my brothers. Grandma and Grandpa nap and I quietly work on whatever projects grandma and I are working on that week. We pick fresh peas and dig tiny baby potatoes from the garden for dinner. Grandma and I make an apple crisp from the fresh apples that fell from the tree, that I gathered that morning, for a quarter a bucket. After dinner, the evening is still warm. The grass is cool and soft on my feet. The sprinkler is fresh and inviting.

Now that is a summer day. What is today? Will summer not come this year? Sigh...