Keith Milne
By Keith C. Milne
Growing up in California, the summers seemed to start early and end really late, so I grew up with lots of reasons to love and cherish all of that light, and fun while young. I wished that it would never end. I loved going to the beach, cutting grass, playing baseball, and riding my bike for hours. I enjoyed not having to bundle up or do things differently in the winter. Back then, I never dreamed that someday I would no longer enjoy those long, hot summer days the way I did while growing up and, instead, see summertime take a backseat to the other three seasons. Of course, I also never imagined that someday I would be living in the Northeast United States either!
The Northeastern United States has seasons that distinguish themselves from one another more than most other regions of the U.S. Because of that, each season has its own brief time to offer activities unique to that particular season, including outdoor remodeling, roofing, paving etc.
Now that I am a senior, the decades of prioritizing my time in order to maximize sunlight and outdoor activities as much as possible, have begun to demand payment for the unbelievable amount of solar radiation exposure that my skin has endured, and two different types of skin cancer have cropped up for me on two occasions. While this is unfortunate, it isn’t surprising factoring in my fair complexion.
Beyond the medical implications, I have simply grown and changed over the years and how I perceive summer now has become less favorable as compared to the other seasons, but this revelation is very surprising to me to a degree, now that this truth has moved into my field of awareness, along with my changed preferences for many things.
Here are my top ten reasons why summer my least favorite season:
#1: The Highest Sun Angle Of The Year
While this summer solstice angle is great for growing things, this is the time of year that the damaging aspects of too much solar radiation can eventually lead to “growing” skin mutations, malformations, and different types of skin cancers. Having had skin cancer twice, I am now keenly aware of the need for protecting my skin and wished I had done a better job of covering up, especially during the early days of my life before sunscreens existed. I now wear the big rimmed hat (I have 4 different types/colors), Maui Jim sunglasses, long sleeved cotton t-shirts, usually long pants or long shorts or yoga pants, and sunscreen on my face and neck.
Yes, on hot days I’m pretty miserable, and I run hot and sweat easily, but getting cancer has been a wake up call for me regarding my own, former lackadaisical behavior towards protecting my skin in the past. But the cancer forced me to rethink keeping my above ground pool, which I just disposed of this year! I always wanted a pool and enjoyed it while I had one, but I cannot spend time out floating around in the pool, which is essentially begging my skin to start growing another cancer. Now I associate this misery with summer, and how could I not!? So, chalk one up for not liking summer like I used to,
#2 High Heat and Humidity
Now that I’ve gotten rid of my huge pool so I won’t be tempted to float around in the sun all the time, and now that I am additionally covering up my skin, and wearing sunscreen, making me feel like I’m wearing a mask that holds all my body heat in, for me now, high summer heat and humidity have become a much higher level of personal discomfort. I hate it. I hate having to cover up so much, and for having to monitor how much sun I’m getting all the time. It’s a hard habit to develop, and seems counterintuitive to me that just a little too much sunlight could be so unhealthy for our skin and eyes.
Apparently, a person can get all the vitamin D they need from direct sunlight in about 15 minutes or less, especially in the summer when the days are long and we are uncovering more of our bodies than other times of the year. Contrast that to all the people you see who always think that if a little is good, then more is better, and they spend the better part of each day playing beach volleyball or just hanging out and suntanning all day long! It’s no wonder that so many of us are now being asked to pay the piper in the form of all kinds of skin mutations, discolorations, cancers, growths, and the need for constant vigilance in monitoring new growths.
#3 Noise Pollution
The noise in the summer seems to be twice what it is at any other time of the year, despite all the trees having their leaves, which does offer a buffer to the loud sounds of sorts. Harley Davidson motorcycles and other motorcycles that have the same type of engine, a V-twin, many with zero mufflers or only the minimum allowed by law should not be allowed legally to make the noise they make. I’m all for zipping down the road on a bike, but the noise is ridiculous and over the top and needs to be outlawed. I’ve been hearing that noise my whole life and there are more out there now than ever before. As soon as it gets warm, out they come. You can hear them a couple of miles away! It’s absurd to me that someone’s right to ride one while creating that much noise for so many people somehow supersedes the majority’s right to peace and quiet!
Tons of trucks, often towing extended trailers that rattle loudly with every bump in the road, on their way to the myriad projects being hustled while the weather is warm.
Landscapers with their trucks and trailers, and loud riding lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, chain saws, and power rakes!
Lots of people cruising around with their windows down and their music turned up, hoping to turn heads in their direction.
And, where I live, three different airports, one small local airport with lots of small aircraft circling around over my house before landing, and two military airports, one air force, the other air national guard, both running “touch-and-go” drills often for the better part of a day, or the sudden take-off of small group (3-6) F-22’s headed for the middle-east sometimes in the early morning hours or just before midnight, but most often during the day. Doesn’t matter when, except if you’re asleep you will be awakened!
#4 Crowds
Unless you have made your reservations early, like months ago, good luck even finding a place to stay if you should decide you want to go somewhere on the spur of the moment. This is particularly true for all of the high-demand locations like San Francisco, LA, much of Florida, Myrtle Beach, Cape Cod, etc. or any college town venue during graduation. Bottom line: most of the working world, which is the majority, are off for some of the summer and usually plan their vacations during the months of May through early September. The beach, the lake, the cooler mountains without snow, national parks and many camp sites are the most popular destinations, and the most crowded places to be during the summer for vacationing.
If you live in a college town or in or near a desirable vacation destination all year round, then you can attest to the difference that summer crowds can make on everyday living. Suddenly, getting in the car to go a couple of miles down the street to your favorite pizza place becomes an hour long ordeal because you have to go past the theme park and the traffic created when it’s in full swing during the summer months, like many living near a Busch Gardens can attest to. It’s almost as if everyone is off, wanting to go everywhere, all at once, everyday! Everything takes longer than you anticipate, costs more than expect or should cost, and isn’t quite as awesome as you thought it was going to be, or as fun as you anticipated, adding salt to the wounds of summer travel nowadays!
#5 Air Pollution
Every year, air quality seems to get continually a little worse as we continue living in denial about climate change. More frequent ozone alerts, more temperatures exceeding 105 or higher, more droughts, then more flooding rains.
Lately, the air quality everywhere is worsening. Wildfires up and down the west coast of the United States every summer, lightning fires in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico, and timber burning in Idaho, and now add the smoke from west to east in Canada! Recently, the air quality in New York City was the worst in the entire world for a day or two as upper level winds shifted, driving the smoke from the eastern Canadian wildfires straight south through the great lakes, New England, NY, NJ and many other cities up and down the east coast. All of them sitting ducks, victims of horrible, choking smoke with no relief until the wind blew it elsewhere again.
Luckily, it seems that the biggest polluters, the automobile industry, are FINALLY switching over to electric vehicles, but unfortunately, so far, the infrastructure for charging stations and charging standards making them more universally usable are playing catch-up. It’s been a horse before the cart situation with this switchover to EV’s from gasoline/fossil fuels, and it’s time for the ability for people to get charged fast and efficiently to happen.
#6 Project Pressure
For most people, summer is the only season that offers weather that is conducive to building anything or painting outside. That means every year, millions of homeowners are keeping one eye on the local building supply store sale price events, and the other on the weather report. They’ve planned all winter, maybe a whole year. Some have paid for drawings to be done, and most have had to purchase materials well in advance, because windows, doors, furniture, appliances, and other durable goods, or building supplies now take months to acquire, and are needed to be in place before many contractors will agree to do the desired work. Many homeowners had to reserve these builders well in advance and then hope that all of the elements would come together at the right time in order to finally get their project launched and finished in a timely and cost effective manner. Been there, done that numerous times, and the experience accelerates aging! It’s needlessly, and hugely STRESSFUL!
Adding to this since the Covid-19 pandemic created supply chain shortages and price gouging, is having to pay anywhere from 30% to 300% more for every aspect of the project over what it cost only 3 years ago!
The weather can, and often does ruin these plans, pushing them forward, sometimes for considerable periods of times, or sometimes does so much damage that some projects are just abandoned as costs just get too high. Most often things work out just fine, but the whole experience isn’t for the faint of heart.
#7 Erratic and Dangerous Weather
It seems that even the states or regions within states that used to seemingly be exempt from bad or erratic weather have now joined the same league as the rest of the nation. Southern California for example used to be dry for ages, but get a little rain just in the nick of time during the winter with impulses rolling in off of the Pacific Ocean regularly, giving a much needed drink to the region as well as provide snow to the higher elevations for recreational skiers and for providing the lions share of the drinking water for the long periods of dry. No more. A years long, historic drought not only impacted southern CA, but in the end proved to be so serious that it literally nearly brought the whole State of California to it’s knees, ending with historic rains that filled the lakes and creeks and put so much snow in the mountains that people were stranded for weeks! Now they’re experiencing historic flooding as all of that snow melts. And, this is just the State of California’s issues from climate change.
All of the interior states in the U.S. have seen an uptick in severe storms. Tornado’s that are more powerful and on the ground for much longer doing their damage have become the norm rather than the exception.
Milder than normal, almost mid-Atlantic-like winter weather in the Northeast, with snow falling less often, with less volume, with the snow most often being heavy and wet in nature making the snow harder to move, and more costly both financially, and with the human toll of increased heart attack victims who were not in adequate shape to be moving that kind of weight with a shovel.
Debilitating heat in the deserts and mid-west, over the top humidity in the deep south and Florida, more frequent hurricanes of a higher magnitude with a penchant for destruction, and wildfires every year in Florida, California, and now Canada. Hey, there’s a lot to love about all that! (NOT).
#8 Traffic Jams and Crazy, Dangerous, Drivers
From coast to coast, American drivers are having to sit in miles long traffic jams more often every year. This is a huge waste of time and money and tries everyone’s patience and can often result in road raging, and even people shooting one another now over minor traffic transgressions.
Yes, they are minor, but are now so frequent, each one is the one that will potentially be the straw that breaks many drivers backs and causes them to exhibit or engage in untoward or downright dangerous acts and behaviors as they break under the pressure of work stress, family stress, HEAT stress, having their patience tried over and over again within a short period of time, and other possible contributing factors.
Summer heat, summer crowds jamming up the highways and byways of our great nation, combining with all the other stressors and annoyances that come with the summer season and it’s no wonder that so many people lose their cool (pun intended) and blow their lids in the summer!
I remember learning in my Criminology class at UMASS that the biggest criminal cohort group was the 16-28 year old males, and the biggest time for their criminal misdeeds, particularly violent crimes, peaks in the hot summer months just like clockwork every year. Summer fun for all!
#9 Price Gouging
So you’ve planned and prepaid much of your trip and put up with working for another six months waiting for your vacation to FINALLY come around. Yay! You pack it up, and head out only to find that EVERY SINGLE PLACE YOU GO that the prices for a coffee, a meal, a room, a car, a ticket, or even gas from a station in or near a resort area are through the roof! This didn’t really used to bother me too much when I was younger and dumber! I used to think, “Hey, whatever, it’s part of going on vacation and just don’t think about it and have a good time and relax a little and don’t worry about any of it!”
But as I got older and started thinking about these expenses in terms of sweat equity and how many hours or fractions of hours I had to work in order to pay for any given item, or the trip as a whole referring to vacations. For example, if I bought a meal at a nice restaurant, I would divide the total cost of the meal by my hourly wage or worth or wage equivalent. That totally puts into perspective the have-nots going on vacation is like giving back your money to another rich person at twice or more the rate per hour that you slaved to earn in order to take the vacation in the first place.
This is true for a huge part of the world, and the pricing that I encounter nowadays is so out of line with what ordinary working people earn, that we will all be in debt perpetually to MasterCard, Visa, and all the other creditors in order to be able to afford to “enjoy ourselves” as we spend beyond our means.
So, my bad, now I have created a reason to feel bad about what much of the world was charging me to go anywhere and to do different things. I mean, after all, I work just as hard as that guy, (plumber for example), so why should he get to charge me $150/hour plus parts and travel when I only make $40/hour? Take the cost of anything and divide it by your hourly wage equivalent and discover a whole new perspective on inflation (and the gouging and the greed) that impacts your wallet and sucks hard on the nipple of your earnings.
A lot of the rooms we spend time in on vacation are nightmares and I cannot believe how much some of these noisy, chilly, damp, sticky, rooms in Florida for example can get off charging nearly $200/night when there are a million rooms and rentals available. But they do, and I’ve ended up in more than one room that disappointed in Florida, then add in the crowds, the gouging on everything else, including the State with all these airport fees, and rental car fees, and tourist taxes that are essentially having all of the tourists paying for much of what Floridians enjoy, and for keeping their taxes low.
#10 Constant Yard Work
When you’re young (and don’t have skin cancer yet), you eventually get to a place where you want to own your own home with a really good yard, in a great neighborhood with good schools. A huge yard is a big plus!
But fast forward 40 years or so and, once you retire, and now have skin cancer from taking your shirt off or wearing a bathing suit or minimalist clothing all of your life with no sunscreen in the summer while you mow the lawn or are doing yard work, you have a really different perspective about the value of a tan body, or the value of having such a big yard that seems to take all the life out of you to tend to now, and soaks up nearly all of your time in the summer because all of the flower beds, and rose gardens, and raised vegetable garden beds need to be weeded and watered and fertilized. Constant weeding of the flower beds, trimming around all the plantings, and mowing a one acre lawn riddled with trees and shrubs and plantings everywhere every 5 days is exhausting.
When you rent, you resent not owning a home of your own. When you live in an apartment or condo you yearn for more space between you and your neighbors, and more room in general, as well as more privacy and less rules to abide by. The grass endlessly seems greener on the other side of the hill, doesn’t it?
Bonus: #11 Crazy People with AR-15’s and 9mm’s Looking For Victims At A Crowded Concert Or Public Venue
Don’t even get me started with this last, bonus item! My God, it’s getting hard to go nearly anywhere, including the grocery store in our now gun filled and violent country.
Thanks to the gun lobby scaring everyone to death and convincing people that they don’t stand a chance of surviving in the world unless they are well armed! They keep insisting that if everyone thinks everyone else is packing or doesn’t know who else might be carrying a firearm, then others might think twice before pulling a gun out on you and committing a crime at your expense.
However, just the opposite is true in reality. There are now over 400 million weapons floating around out there, more than the population of our country! More guns has resulted in more gun violence. It’s really that simple. It’s quite astonishing, but it isn’t rocket science.
Reduce the number of guns, and gun violence declines. Increase the number of weapons on the street and the gun violence statistics go up. The weapon of choice is the AR15 Military assault rifle, which can be had in Tennessee at age 18 with no training or special requirements, and can also be brandished on the street in plain sight without a license.
Hell, Louisiana is now offering tax breaks to people to buy these dangerous weapons!
So, you won’t be finding me at any crowded public venues ever again in this country as long as the gun laws remain unchanged. The number of mass shootings in our country rises every year, and I will not tempt my own victimization by attending a crowded public venue until that changes hugely towards the positive.
In the summer, it’s as if the whole world is working, pounding, grinding, modifying, sanding, blowing, building, trimming, spraying, cutting, moving, or transporting things all at the same time for months. Once schools are back in and the weather begins to turn colder, things always get a lot quieter.
I’m shocked that I have changed physically enough that those changes, like getting skin cancer and losing my hearing enough to need aids to hear normally, have impacted my attitude enormously towards summer, a season that I formerly loved, into something that I know I must tolerate and get through. My skin cancer has changed how I view the sun and the intensity of it on my skin, which I no longer enjoy feeling.
After suspecting hearing loss from all the years around loud machines at work and loud everything else at home, I had my hearing tested and, as suspected, I needed hearing aids. I learned that hearing loss contributes directly to Alzheimer’s Disease as the lost frequencies are no longer stimulating the parts of the brain that they used to, so those areas atrophy! So, I got a good set of hearing aids and immediately realized why I had lost my hearing in the first place: the world screams at people!
Now that I can properly hear again, I cherish what I hear and do not want anything jeopardizing my hearing. I no longer enjoy loud music, loud people, loud bars, loud restaurants, loud concerts, or loud vehicles of any kind. I certainly hope that as we switch over to electric or hydrogen that the world becomes correspondingly quieter. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
I love the long days of summer and watching everything grow and the greenery as much as anyone else. However, compared to the quiet and relative comfort involved in the other three seasons, including winter (layering works wonders), at my age, and for living on a large lot with lots of plantings, summer has become my least favorite season!
Update: July 9, 2023:
It seems that I’m not alone with my feelings about summer. Here’s what Jim Gaffigan had to say about summer just this morning! 👍🏻👍🏻😎
