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Tales of two seasons
By Cheramy Rusbuldt, Viewpoint
Among the results of “a widow’s retirement” are some good things: early get-ups are strictly personal choices; staying up late to watch an oldy-but-goody movie is OK, too; deciding to eat dinner (or not) depends on the willingness to mess up the kitchen and just leave it till the next day.
But there are also some not-so-wonderful circumstances: wrestling with the tradition of Christmas decorating; being bombarded by unofficial invitations to financial seminars, health insurance and long-term care discussions; realizing that gray hair doesn’t revert to beautiful on its own; balancing the value of cherished memories against the emptiness of recurring special dates which seem to train evermore closely together;
This weekend is one of the last great holidays of the year in America. Labor Day has long been hailed as the end of summer, the beginning of fall, the jumping off point toward pumpkins, turkeys and wrapping paper. And, in the trend of too-much-too-soon, retailers will start to tempt shoppers with costumes, pecan and pumpkin pies and even more “sophisticated” must-have electronics.
Surely all of us are sick and tired of the Texas heat and drought which have crinkled our skin and our lawns and pushed water bills through the stratosphere. Sadly, in our neck of the woods, rescue from those summer symptoms is not automatic with the first week of September. In fact, weather data shows we can still have triple-digit temperatures well into October.
Even with that in mind, last weekend, I bit the bullet and had a decade-old landscape scalped at the “old” old house, knowing (and dreading) the task of replanting pretty much from scratch was to follow. Now, you Regular Readers know I am not a gardener. My black thumbs have meant Death Row for even the most stubborn Texas native plants. So, as I scrounge my way through skimpy pensions with grocery and restaurant coupons, I am not looking forward to truck loads of mulch, thousands of those little black planters, and reprogramming my sprinkler system to begin repopulating the beds.
So, what are my plans for this three-day weekend? It won’t be gardening, but beyond that certainty, I don’t know. I will spend some time with my daughter and my grandkids. But Brandon (as usual) is over-scheduled with his soccer obsession, and neither one of the other young-uns is the least bit interested in his football. Will there be any time for all of us to grill hotdogs, steam corn on the cob, make ice cream in that freezer stored in the garage?
Or will it simply be another case of transporting sports gear all over the county, trying to avoid sunburn either in the stands or next to an over-crowded pool, or simply (and silently) reminiscing about past Labor Days when life was younger and more fun?
If you have traditions sending summer away, keep them. If not, try to conjure up some new ones. And if you have misplaced some of those behaviors, dig down and resurrect them. August is gone! Along with my dead plantings, I bid a happy (and hopeful) bye-bye to shorts, sunscreen and sandals.
Let’s live it up, McKinney! We’ve still got time before mums, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and goblins show up on our front porches and the old family recipes for sweet potato casserole are dusted off. Did I mention that these moments seem to come faster and faster every year?
Cheramy Rusbuldt is a free-lance journalist living in McKinney’s Historic District.
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