Blog 3843 – 05.31.2026

The Long Hot Summer

When we are children, summers seem to last so long. The longest summer I ever knew was my twentieth, 1970. That was the year that I spend eleven months, January through December, as a soldier in the Republic of South Vietnam. I often refer to that time as my long hot summer.

The Long Hot Summer is the title of one of my favorite movies starring Paul Newman and his wife Joann Woodward. Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick, and Angela Lansbury also play important roles in the film. It was released in 1958 which was for me one of those long hot childhood summers. I was only seven years old that summer.

It seems sometimes like 1958 was a long time ago and at others like it was just a recent summer gone by. Summers in the south come earlier and linger longer than they do in our more northern states.

When I was eighteen the barber who had cut my hair since I was ten asked me, “How older are you son?” And when I replied, “Eighteen.” he said, “Time is going to start clipping by for your now.” A little barber humor but he was so right. The longer I stay at this particular adventure in time and space, the faster the weaver’s shuttle seems to fly. That is an allusion to the first part of a verse in the Book of Job:

I do not agree with Job’s conclusion in the second half of that verse, but he was going through a particularly rough time in his life so things seemed to him quite hopeless. Most if not all of us have as Charles Dickens wrote experienced, “The best of times and the worst of times.”

Summer has never been my favorite season though like most children I did enjoy summer vacations from school. The cooler days of autumn, returning to school, reuniting with old friends and making new ones, the changing leaves, Halloween, and Thanksgiving –  this was and still is my favorite time of year. Yet, I confess that being squeezed between a long hot summer and a cold blustery winter is what gives both autumn and spring their great appeal.

The poet has written large, “Time waits for no man” and the Latin phrase, “Tempus fugit” (which means “time flies” or literally “time flees”) all three agree with my barber, Job, and Dickens that time, that life, has it ups and downs, back and forth, and seems to pass with every increasing speed. Even the long hot summers fly by in the blink of an eye. All the more reason we should pays attention lest we miss something important.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White