At Large

After spending many decades in the tri-state area (we refuse to divulge the number for fear it might incriminate us), we have come to relish the celebrations of August. With summer in full swing and vacation days invested in golf and swimming and boating and bicycling and simply soaking up the sun, it is time to add in parades and fairs and festivals.  

Those with long memories will recall the summer wave of “firemen’s parades” that hopscotched from town to town in carefully choreographed sequencing so as not to diminish the participant number by overlapping Lakeville with Millerton with Sheffield. We piled in the family car, drove to the host village, found a place to park, watched as the fire companies, the scout troops, the 4-H float pulled by a tractor, and the kids on their ribbon-festooned bicycles went past, then flocked to the local encampment of the traveling carnival to throw baseballs at wooden milk bottles with hopes of winning a stuffed animal, getting cotton candy stuck to our faces and riding on the portable merry-go-round.

The sweet corn comes into season in August, and roadside stands boast freshly picked ears along with native tomatoes, mounds of squash, and buckets of green beans still wet with dew. Harvest festivals are on the horizon when cake sales are added to autumn fruit and vegetables to remind us all that the leaves will soon turn and summer will be a fleeting memory. Fortunately, there is still August.

Tag sales seem to blossom this month as the long-threatened clean out of barns and attics spills onto lawns and invites a chorus of “it wouldn’t hurt to just stop and look” comments from passing motorists.

There’s great theater from Chatham to Lee to Stockbridge to Sharon. There are nightly concerts at Tanglewood, world-class dance at Jacob’s Pillow, weekend presentations at Music Mountain, and pop-up festivals of roots music, bluegrass, and folk. Summer is still in full bloom, here for the enjoying.

Until it rains.

Let the rain come down

And, here is where traditional thinking seems to take an abrupt left turn. Many loathe rain storms, especially when they roll in during the height of vacation and force cancellation of the picnic or the traditional firing up of the backyard grille. Others – and we may be an admitted minority – find the thunder storms that manifest themselves during August to be some of the most enjoyable times of the year. This is entertainment for which you need neither reservations nor tickets. A covered porch and a comfortable outdoor chair are the only requirements.

Over the years, we spent many late afternoons sitting on the front porch, watching the clouds racing across the sky as a storm bubbled up in the Catskills, gathered energy as it passed the Hudson River Valley, and unleashed bolts of lightning and thunder that echoed through the Litchfield Hills and Berkshires. It would start with hints of rain; then the full on waterfall unleashed as the storm marched on.

The various dogs we had over the years responded differently to the explosive sounds and the attendant change of atmospheric pressure. Some simply stretched out on the porch near our feet and watched along with us. Others scrambled under the nearest bed, not to emerge until we coaxed them out and reassured them that all was well.

If memory serves, these weather performances rarely lasted too long. Once the storm arrived, rain in sheets would dash across the lawn, provide a free car wash, and make the leaves on the maples and ash trees dance. Then it was over. Wind aloft urged the clouds along to take their atmospheric acrobatics to Winsted and West-field and Northampton and gone.    

When the day were warm, steam would rise from the road. When the rain stopped, it was always a good time to go for a walk and discover what might have appeared. Red efts would emerge and decide to crawl from one side of a road to the other. We would bend down and peer at them, but leave them to their own pursuits, for although efts can live in nature for up to 15 years, they die quickly when brought home and put in a jar with some blades of grass and a few drops of water.

Wisdom of the ages

Call it free entertainment, an afternoon diversion, or, if you must, simply a pain. A good thunderstorm offers several options – grab the umbrella and go to a movie, sit inside and read a chapter or two in that novel you assigned to yourself for summer reading, or sit on the covered porch with an iced tea and let the heavens entertain you.

Perhaps a quote attributed to Confucius sums it up. “Yin and yang, male and female, strong and weak, rigid and tender, heaven and earth, light and darkness, thunder and lightning, cold and warmth, good and evil … the interplay of opposite principles constitutes the universe.”