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Luke-Warm City Nights

Summer is supposed to be hot, isn’t it? Well, apparently not in Regensburg. When I was younger I could remember Detroit summers being hot and sticky. If you didn’t keep moving, your sneakers would melt into the asphalt. You’d sweat just thinking about the heat. You’d volunteer to go to the store for your mom just to stand in front of the frozen food sections to cool off.

So where’s this Global Warming I keep hearing about?

Oh, yeah. I moved from Detroit, Michigan to Regensburg, Germany. So what’s the difference in temperature between Detroit and Regensburg, you ask? Well, in August, the average high/low temperatures for Detroit are 81º/62º (F), while Regensburg is 73º/53º (F) (see links below).

Time Warped

So is living in Regensburg the real reason why summers have cooled down? Or is this just what happens when one gets old? Is there something in the water that affects how we remember our younger days?

When I think about the idyllic days of my youth, everything was perfect. I would spend summer vacation playing all day, until the proverbial street lights came on, and then some. The baseball fields were expansive, with pickup games every day. The basketball rims were bigger, and I made every shot. The air was thinner, allowing me to throw a football down the length of the field. The ice creams were sweeter, enticing with every delectable lick.

I remember our Calvin-and-Hobbesian choice of sitting under the shade of the maple tree with friends, or going to someone’s swimming pool and lying under the sun. Banana split or Chocolate Brownie Delight at the Dairy Queen? Go to the mall, or go to the cinema matinee?

It was really that way, wasn’t it?

Cold, Hard Reality

But of course, we can’t go back (in time) again. Most of us today live in a world of bills and unused exercise equipment and unrelenting bosses. We’re worried about taking care of our parents as they get older, taking care of our kids’ education as they get older, and taking care of our retirement as we get older.

We pine for “good old” days long gone, because we only remember the good out of them. But what about today? What will we remember twenty or thirty years from now? Will these be carefree days as well? Will we remember our current situation fondly, even longingly? Probably. That’s what happens with old people.

So what will we remember from today? Will we filter our memories through rose-colored strainer? Will we remember our methapors as being wittier? Will the traffic be thinner, the air cleaner, the food better? Of course it will.

So shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves more, then, if today will turn out to be some of the best times of our lives?

After all, what better time to live than now?

[Old World]	[Old World]	[Old World]	[April 2002]
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August 2002

Luke-Warm City Nights

Time Warped

Cold, Hard Reality

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