Of blueberries and sunburns
“Summer Twilight, A Recollection of a Scene in New-England’’ (oil on wood, 1834), by British-born American painter Thomas Cole (1801—1848), of the Hudson River School of painters
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal 24.com
As we move deeper into high summer, the green of the trees and grass is less intense, as are the scents of flowers and the volume of birdsong. Soon the goldenrod will blaze by the roads. On some days we settle into an agreeable torpor, perhaps more socially acceptable in July than in any other month in our workaholic nation. And it’s a time in which to read long novels, biographies and histories, albeit nodding off from time to time while doing it.
Ah, cookouts! The smell of burning flesh. Yellow jackets! Ants! Snakes (usually just garter snakes)! The distinctive smell of lighter fluid to ignite the charcoal. Squirrels eyeing the proceedings, ready, like the birds, to swiftly move in for any food detritus we accidentally left behind.
One of the pleasures of summer in New England is stopping by blackberry, blueberry and raspberry bushes and feeding yourself with these tart or sweet “antioxidant-rich superfoods”. By the way, wild blueberries, which famously cover a lot of ‘’barrens’’ in Downeast Maine, taste better than the cultivated ones.
A walk on a beach this summer, or along many otherwise pretty roads, shows you how urgently Rhode Island needs a bottle bill.
Do you still follow those old summer myths – e.g., that swimming after eating will give you cramps that could end up drowning you? No it won’t. Or that getting a tan is healthy. “You look healthy!, ‘’ our parents used to say to our sunburned faces, in a mistake that you can trace back to the 1920’s, when having a tan started to be associated with the leisure time of the affluent rather than with farmers and day laborers. Getting your tan in such sexy places as Florida, California and the French Riviera gave you a particular status.
Now, after decades of skin-cancer removals, a couple rather gory, I head for the shade as much as I can.