Ain’t No Summer Man


Summer evening along the Vltava

Summer evening along the Vltava

Sunday, 9:30 a.m. I am running. The sun is baking down already, so I am in the 6th circle of hell, the circle of hell reserved for those who loathe the heat, love the Bee Gees, and Richard Nixon. Additionally, there is a lot of activity along the river this morning, so I cannot utilize my patented style of sweating and blaspheming (aka: sweatpheming).

I pull sweat out of my eyes as I avoid children, cyclists, children cyclists, and a few drinkers.

The activity grows as I get to the train bridge and I see that there is a gathering of some sort along the bank up ahead. On my way back down the river, I see that it’s a huge festival, with games, concessions, bands, and loads of people. What’s more, these people are having fun.

But it’s summer.

Summer is that time of year when a propensity towards profuse sweating makes life a little (read: completely) miserable for me. I can’t think straight in this heat and my most heinous mistakes have always come between the months of June and August. There was the mullet of July 1991, the gas station sushi of August 2002, and the great linebacker antagonizing of June 2003. Heat is my kryptonite.

Moreover, I seem to rather dislike – OK despise – those who enjoy summer. You know who I mean. Those who spend all winter groaning about the glorious cold weather. Those who can spend all day in the sun roasting like a dead beetle, those impervious to extreme heat and humidity, those who aren’t comfortable until they have turned a shade of brown not unlike burnt pizza.

They are the Summer people. And I hate them.

Oh, it’s not as if I can’t see that there are some great things about summer. There is the feel of summer: mellow, relaxed, mildly intoxicated. Summer is the time of year made for drinking cold drinks and watching sports. There are the long golden evenings and the sleepy canopy of summer nights. And of course women go from clothed to not-so-clothed and boy that’s just like having birthday cake and ice cream in the same day.

In Prague, activity along the Vltava River marks the arrival of summer. A festival or a gathering along the Vltava is a fairly common sight in the warm months. Nearly every weekend in the spring and summer the banks of the Vltava see some large group of people eating, drinking, or sporting. There are farmers’ markets, car shows, and boat races. There are beer stands so that we can wind down from a day of work with a stroll along the river and a beer.

Last week there was the beer festival. Surely any time you give me a whole bunch of beer I am going to be happy, but this was extra special. Besides the beer, there were bands, roasting meat and delicacies, and loads of people. The Czechs have figured out that if you offer good music, Great food, and orgasmic beer near water, people will be in a pretty good mood.

Still, I’ll never be a summer person and the summer people clearly exist to annoy us rational people. But I guess if you have beer and a river nearby and lots of skin, then they don’t bother you so much.

Maybe that’s a rule for life.

  1. #1 by greg galeone on June 10, 2014 - 12:33 am

    Bring on some St Norbert’s amber and Dvorak and I am set for the night. Nice post Damo.

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