Enjoy the Summer Evenings

Please help me welcome Slim Randles as today’s Wednesday’s Guest. As a divergence from his normal Home Country humor, he is sharing some thought on those wonderful, lazy summer evenings, when the work is done, dinner is over, and we can sit outside on a deck or porch, or even a stump, and simply enjoy. Of course, those kinds of evenings are perfect for lemonade. Help yourself to a glass.

And when you are finished here, hop over to The Blood-Red Pencil blog where Slim is also a guest. How does he do that? Two places at the same time? He is amazing.

 

Our day is filled with heat at this time of year. It commands our attention and makes our work harder. As we toil, we daydream not about love or success, but things as mundane as shade and a cool drink.

But though the oppressive heat weighs on our brains and taxes our bodies, it is the price we pay for being allowed to spend time outdoors … and it has its one singular consolation: our summer evenings.

When the sun goes down in summer, it’s romantic enough to hug a cactus.

The recipe is simple; keep the earth warm, but just bring out the stars and a soft breeze that cools the skin. Mix this with a fulmination of little night varmint sounds of peeping and chirping and croaking.

And guitars.

Whether we play them ourselves or just turn on the radio, it is a setting that is perfect for guitars. Villalobos, Fernando Sor, Tarrega, Randy Travis, Doc Watson, Steve Cormier.

We sit in brick-paved patios with something cool and someone sweet. We relax and talk about dreams, because on evenings like this, anything is possible. On nights like this, it’s difficult to decide whether remembering evenings like this in the past is better than anticipating those to come. All we really know is that it sure is nice to be here right now.

Tonight I’m going to see if I can remember all the words to “Little Joe the Wrangler” and find out if my guitar is still in tune.

If you click on the links you can find out some interesting things about guitars and the men who play them so well.

Do you sit outdoors on a summer evening? Do you just like to sit and watch the sun go down, or do you need to be busy? Sometimes I can just sit and be.

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And now a word from Slim’s sponsor:

Need a job? Full and part time positions open. Email fullwork82@gmail.com for an interview.

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The Home Country radio show will be coming soon to a radio station near you! New, from Syndication Networks.

Slim Randles writes a nationally syndicated column, Home Country and is the author of a number of books including  Saddle Up: A Cowboy Guide to Writing. That title, and others, are published by  LPD Press. His columns have been compiled into the book Home Country.