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Show :h&7: MdDmiimitanini cl eaim Sing for your summer Sometimes you just have to take summer into your own hands. Because if you decide to wait for a perfect summer day to kick off the picnic season you might end up waiting until August. Our advice is to go ahead and mix up a batch of potato salad, get out the frisbee, dust off your fiddle and invite a few friends over for a I oedown. Of course, as soon as you plan a picnic for about 40 of your most intimate friends, knowing full well that your house will hold 20 at most, you are at the weather's mercy. No amount of pleading, praying or superstitious incantation will guarantee sunshine on the appointed afternoon. Take last weekend for instance. Fed up with winter, our neighbors threw caution to the wind and lit the barbecue grill. They dug an old baseball bat out of the shed and rounded round-ed up a team. But no sooner had the coals begun to glow when a vicious snow squall descended into the valley. The players beat a hasty retreat into the house. Meanwhile, a similar storm attacked Main Street. Spring-clad shoppers were buffeted from doorway to doorway. The snow leaked into their open-toed sandals and whipped through their linen skirts. Finally they retreated into various boutiques to warm up and regroup. Needless to say, as soon as our neighbors began to dismantle the picnic table the snow stopped. The wind was suddenly quiet and the sun made a guest appearance from behind a cloud. The second baseman resumed his position behind the third sagebrush from the fenceline and the fiddle player wandered out of the kitchen. Before long, the burgers were sizzling on the grill and there was a three-ring circus of frisbee, baseball and hacky sack players in the field. The fiddle player was soon joined by a banjo man and a woman on spoons. It finally felt like summer. And the best part was knowing that it was just beginning. Around the picnic table, with the sound of the river running in the background, the conversation conver-sation was full of plans. Gardeners compared com-pared notes on ideal planting days and bolstered each others' hopes for a productive season, river runners speculated about upcoming up-coming adventures while the kids jabbered on about camping trips and little league and fishing. By Sunday, the conversion was complete, Hobie Cats were pulled out of storage, baseball mitts were oiled, the garden was turned and a fleet of tricycles appeared on front lawns throughout the neighborhood. Never mind that the afternoon wind knocked over the lawn chairs and the foothills were once again shrouded in snow flurries, summer had begun. |