Summer ABC's --- The Remix

Previously, this little exercise got me going and was well-received. We are in the heat of summer and let us take a chance to list and listen. As always, do feel free to make your own summer alphabet:

A = Ahhhhh! The season of summer is the great exhale ---- ahhh.... It is the season of long, lazy, easy evenings on the front porch with a cold beverage and the baseball game on the radio. It is sitting on sand and listening to the waves; spending afternoons at the baseball game where there is no clock and the game can last hours. Summer is campfire rings and floating on the river....ahhh......

B = Bikes The mode of transportation in summer. There was always a place where the neighborhood kids would gather during the summer. One recognized the place by the number of bikes parked, dropped, and lying in front of the home. My ride was a sporty little 3-speed that even had a speedometer. In recent years under the leadership of my oldest brother we have embarked on “Bike the Burgh” which is a day-long bicycle ride along the trails and byways of our fair city. My brother is quite the biker and takes the time to research the route, making sure the hills are few and the stops-of-interest are spread out widely. A couple of weeks ago we did 32 miles (blessed be Aleve) with stops that included “Penn Brewery” and “Dave and Andy’s Ice Cream.” I tell you for beer and ice cream I’ll bike many miles!

C = Church Camp As a kid I never went. As a young adult, I was hired as Camp Program Staff and worked two summers as a camp counselor. Every week a new batch of kids would arrive and we spent our week assisting in either sports camp, adventure week, tennis camp, swimming camp....you get the idea. I enjoyed the experience --- hanging out with the other staff was a blast and Saturday evening staff nights out were memorable. The kids were, for the most part, well-behaved, rarely suffered from home-sickness and were quite entertaining and provided great sermon illustrations. Yep, it was during my tenure as a program staff counselor that I received the call to ministry. I also could identify a tiger lilly, helped children scale a 16 foot wall, sunk a raft at Ohiopyle, and learned that if you are doing a cook-out and bbq chicken is on the menu be sure to boil the chicken first or your cook-out will conclude at 11 pm. Lesson: Always opt for either hot-dogs or pizza mountain pies when doing a cook-out for 30 elementary age campers.