A Month of Saturdays

During my final year as a public school educator, a fellow teacher asked if I looked forward to retirement. Of course I was! He then mentioned, "Yup! You'll have six Saturdays and a Sunday every week!"

For some reason, this logic did not immediately register in my work-programmed mind. For 30 years I was busy with parades and concerts on Sundays, and pep band on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings during basketball season. I had musical rehearsals from January until the middle of April four evenings per week. We had band shows on Saturdays in the fall. To me, Saturday was often just another workday.

To most people, Saturday is a day to pursue enjoyable pastimes, or maybe catch up on duties around the homestead. Having a week of Saturdays is not as easy as one thinks. It is perfectly fine from my viewpoint to do absolutely nothing on a Saturday every now and then. With a week full of Saturdays, it becomes a problem choosing which Saturday to do nothing on.

If you live in Ohio, or just about any state in the neighborhood, you have had more than enough rain this summer. Most of the time, our big backyard has had areas of water standing in it for days at a time. One particular spot has had water standing in it so much that typical yard vegetation no longer grows. What looks mysteriously like seaweed is beginning to flourish in that spot. I am considering building a dock.

When the rest of the puddles disappear, the ground is still spongy. This makes mowing the lawn challenging. Between developing a mower/boat hybrid and building an ark in my pole barn on some of my many Saturdays, I mow. Mowing the entire lawn at one time has been not occurred for several weeks. Mowing around the temporary ponds leaves tall grass surrounding them and tire tracks in the saturated lawn around them. It ain't pretty, folks.

Last week, due to weather forecasts calling for another inch or three of rain, I actually mowed on a calendar Saturday. This is unacceptable! I mowed on calendar Saturdays for years - at least those Saturdays when I didn't have a school obligation. Now that I have a week FULL of Saturdays, I should not be forced to do yard work on an actual Saturday!! This is an outrage!