Sweet corn and memories of August...

What does August mean to you?  Where does it take you? 

For me, I can't think of August without also thinking of back-to-school shopping with my mom.  After all, August meant the summer was ending in Indiana. We'd go to the Turnstyle (which was like a big Target I guess) and  I'd spend most of the time hiding in the racks. Like all respectable tom boys - I hated clothes shopping! Unfortunately, I had a sister (have a sister) who did NOT hate clothes shopping. Said sister also had breasts.  This made the trips to Turnstyle difficult.  But by the end I'd be harnessed with two fully coordinating outfits and hopefully a pair of light up Keds to make me run super fast.    (I have a very specific memory of jumping from crack to crack across the concrete sidewalk in front of my house, fully confident that my shiny green Keds were the source of my newly acquired super power.)
 
August was phone calls to my best friend with only this phrase "Can you play?" and tenting out in my backyard.  August was telling ghost stories, singing songs from a cassette tape, and playing ding dong ditch. (wearing the super fast Keds of course) August meant hot sweaty days that could quickly turn to cool rainy nights and maybe a tornado.  On nights inside our house, August definitely included the "attic fan"  Nights when it ran in my house, we all slept with our bedroom doors open. In August, I could hear Carson on my parents TV and dad snoring.  August meant sleeping peaceful and feeling safe in a very John Boy Walton kind of way.   

August meant the county fair with it's glorious somewhat toothless "carnies" was coming to my hometown.  It meant cotton candy and elephant ears and rolls of dimes spent trying to win stuffed animals.  I was a huge Wiley Coyote fan.  That loveable loser who never quite caught the Road Runner.  How many dimes did I spend trying to win the 10 inch Wiley?  100? Oh, more I'm sure.  The best thing about the fair was the double ferris wheel, so high up there you could see the Courthouse! Maybe you'd be stopped up there while they loaded people into another car.   I never kissed a boy on the Ferris wheel but I thought a lot about it.  Lots of girls got to... I still think about it.

August meant sticky fingers and bike rides.  That was back when your bike was your trusty steed and your ONLY form of transportation. Trips to the candy store when penny candy actually cost....a penny.  August meant a lot of time spent in your bathing suit.  You had two - the wet one and the less wet one.  They all looked like this.

And August meant canning green beans and tomato juice and lots and lots of corn.  Yummy corn on the cob, really the only way we ate it.  Plain, boiled, with butter, salt and pepper.

I flipped my calendar today and guest what, it's August.