Mark the time: Summer gets here Wednesday

You come from Georgia where the peaches grow, they drink lemonade and speak real slow, and it’s Monday Mail.

Summertime Girls

Today’s opening is a line from the LFO song “Summertime Girls,” perhaps better known as the “I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch” song.

Why start with that? Because of this:

Not yet

It is not summer.

People say it is summer, but it is not.

They say today will be another hot, humid summer day. They say the Memorial Day weekend was the start of summer. They say whatever festival we just had was an annual summer event. They think it gets hot and it’s summer.

If that’s the standard, when last was it summer? January?

It’s like these people don’t even believe in astrology. Or astronomy. Whatever.

Well, as a Capricorn, I have this on the authority not only of contemporary professionals but also those whose ancient monuments to keeping track of the sun remain today: The summer solstice has not yet arrived here at our place on this planet.

I understand that long since ancient civilizations aligned their structures with the sun to mark the seasons, and long since we invented machines to mark the time (not that we need them for this), Fake News has cast doubt upon certain theories, such as climate change, and evolution, and gravity.

But so far it still is not summer until this Earth, tilted 23 degrees on its axis as it revolves around the sun, comes around to where it’s leaning its northern hemisphere as far into the star as it can, and then, from our perspective, the sun hits the Tropic of Cancer.

I’m no astrologer, but I’m told that won’t be until 12:24 a.m. Wednesday.

So, while much in the nature of truth remains in doubt, these days, and the Fake News may say it’s just hotter now because the Earth is closer to the sun, or even that the sun revolves around the Earth, or the Earth is flat, or shaped like a taco, maybe, this is not up for debate:

It is not summer until Wednesday.

SNAKES!

You know what happens when the weather gets hot here in the South: The snakes come out. And you know what happens when the snakes come out: People freak.

A May 21 column suggested that perhaps killing every snake you see is not a good idea, because snakes eat rodents and other pests we don’t want around, and the company of a snake might be preferable to that of a rat, because even though a snake looks scary and could bite you, it won’t give you fleas that carry plague.

Since that column, research has shown that people killing every snake they see likely has contributed to a decline in kingsnakes and an increase in copperheads, because the kingsnakes were eating the copperheads.

Here’s a voice-mail in regard to that piece:

Tim,

This is Tom Robinson. I live in Eufaula, kind of out in the country area. I read your article on snakes, and I agree with most of it except I say that all snakes that are up close to my house are going to be dead snakes, not because of what they do to you, but because of what they cause you to do to yourself. As you’re walking down the steps off the back porch, you see a snake, and you’re OOOH! And you flinch back, and next thing you’re falling down. And for an 84-year-old geezer, uh oh! I’ve got a broken arm, broken leg, and I’m in bad shape. But other than that, I agree with you on snakes. Hiss hiss hiss.

Dear Tom:

If you live out in the country near Eufaula, you shouldn’t be worried about snakes.

You should be worried about alligators.

This story was originally published June 18, 2017 at 3:08 PM with the headline "Mark the time: Summer gets here Wednesday."