Summer's End

There is so much going on in the world worthy of commentary.  Last week I wrote about the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide.”  There is a trade war going on in China and protests in Hong Kong and Moscow.  Many economists are predicting a recession by the end of 2021.   Antifa is acting up again.  A couple of weeks ago, we had two mass shootings and another swell of calls for gun control legislation.  Child climate change advocate Greta Thunberg took a boat to the U.S.   Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were banned from entering Israel. 

Lots to write about.

But I will have none of it.

I’m taking a break. Until Labor Day, I’m not going to post about politics, economics or international affairs and I’m staying off social media (except to return messages).   It’s my digital detox.   A mental health break.   A brief respite from a world that seems to have gotten knocked off its axis.  My Twitter sabbatical went pretty well today.  I only slipped once and peaked at a couple of posts while I checked messages.  I'm going to pivot to other topics.

This week I’m going to make a book recommendation—not a full review --- but a strong recommendation.

I loved Lake of the Ozarks: My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America by Bill Geist.   Geist’s memoir of his teen summers takes us back to a time and a place that no longer exists—a more innocent time (sort of) in his life and in America.  It was a time before cell phones, texts, and the internet.  Before #metoo and summer sports camps and before overstructured teen lives.  It was a time when kids actually HAD summer jobs (at last survey in 2016, only 35% of teens had summer jobs). 

Geist probably had as much fun researching and writing this book as I did reading it.  It’s pretty clear that he found some of the teens that he spent those summers with at the resort to interview them and refresh his recollections (at the end he returns to the site, and alas, the resort itself is gone). His character sketches and descriptions of some of the events are vivid and alive.  There are places in which I laughed out loud.   Those summers must have been a wonderful combination of work duties, freedom from school, vacation and teen hormones. 

Adding to its authenticity is the location.  The summers he recalls center around a resort is in the Lake of the Ozarks and not the Hamptons or Martha’s vineyard.  It is smack in the middle of ordinary America much like Wisconsin Dells farther north (which we used to refer to as the “Polish Riviera”).   It recalls a time when working class America actually had some money to take a vacation.

The book resonated with me personally.  My grandparents bought a farm in central Wisconsin in the mid 60’s and I spent my entire summers in that farm community with long, languid days of fishing, walking in the woods, and hanging out with the neighbor kids (some of whom had jobs in the local resort). 

Perfectly timed, Kim Brooks wrote a thoughtful op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday entitled, We have Ruined Childhood https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/opinion/sunday/childhood-suicide-depression-anxiety.html?).  Our hyper, overstructured culture has led to alienation, an increase in suicide rate and an explosion in opiod use among kids.  In it, Brooks asserts, “For youngsters these days, an hour of free play is like a drop of water in the desert.  Of course, their miserable.”

Geist’s book, much like the film, “Field of Dreams” takes us back to a healthier time for kids, filled with more fun and laughs.  It is the perfect end of summer read.  Don’t miss it.  I promise you won’t be sorry.