Oh how I love this essay from Slim Randles, who is here as today’s Wednesday’s Guest. Maybe because I, too, enjoy a summer evening on the back porch, as long as the mosquitoes stay away, and I do enjoy a tune on the guitar. There was a time I could pluck a string or two. My kids continue to play.
Read on and enjoy, then share your favorite summer-evening pastime with a comment.
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. Villa-Lobos, Fernando Sor, Tarrega, Randy Travis, Doc Watson, Steve Cormier.
We sit in brick-paved patios with something cool and someone sweet and 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 we’ve enjoyed 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.
Brought to you by The Backpocket Guide to Hunting Elk, by Slim Randles. Check it out at www.amazon.com
Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at his Goodreads Page and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.
All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for ten years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than thirty years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.
That’s all from me for today. Please do leave a comment and let me know what you think of Slim’s essay, as well as what you enjoy most on a summer evening. Until next time, be safe.