Happy Monday????

Now that the Minnesota State Fair is almost here the cliche you'll hear most often is "I can't believe summer is almost over" and it will be accompanied by a rather sad face. I've learned not to reply with what's in my heart but rather to nod and smile and say "It sure goes fast." What I want to say is "Thank God it's almost over."

I really don't care much for summer. At least not as an adult. When you're a kid it's great because you don't have school and you get to pretty much goof off for three months. My favorite part of summer was the four weeks I'd spend at camp. I went to Lyman Lodge out on Lake Minnetonka. It's not there anymore -- the YWCA sold it and now there are mini-mansions where there use to be cabins. I know those four weeks at camp were also my mom's favorite four weeks of the summer. It meant four weeks without being afraid every time the phone rang it would be a neighbor saying "Do you know what Mary is up to now?" I think the worse call she got along those lines were when my friend Debbie and I found my dad's stash of condoms in his nightstand and at first we thought it was candy but when we opened one up we realized, of course, it was a balloon. So we blew them up, tied a string around them, and I walked around the block yelling "Balloons for sale; balloons for sale." You can only imagine the joy my mother felt as a parent to pick up the phone and hear "Do you know that Mary is walking around the neighborhood with rubbers on a string?"

No wonder they invented birth control pills.