We’ve officially been in summer for several weeks. It’s been a hot one lately. Our weather is usually unpredictable. I’ve heard it said in Sanpete, that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes or travel five miles. That can literally be true around here.

Summer is celebrated in some cultures. Back in my Norway days, we had parties on the eve of the longest day of the year. It was quite a big event. Now, the days are getting shorter.

Of course, Norway is the “Land of the Midnight Sun,” so the longest day was like a never ending day. What the travel brochures don’t tell you though, is that Norway is also the “Land of the Noonday Darkness” in the wintertime.

I happened to spend one very dark winter up on the Arctic Circle in a steel mill town called Mo I Rana. Talk about “seasonal affective disorder!” The whole town seemed to have it.

The most effective method of dealing with “SAD” by the people in “Mo” seemed to be the use of alcohol and/or mid-winter trips to the island paradise of Majorca in the Mediterranean. But since I was a church missionary, either one of those two options would have been a bit awkward.

I combated my winter depression by 1) visualizing warm, sunny places and 2) convincing Norwegians to let me into their homes to watch television with them.

But I digress. It’s summer I want as my topic today. The Sanpete summer is upon us. How are we enjoying it? I’ve listed 10 simple, random things that we can do which will make memories and make the summer a happy time.

Here they are:

1) Porch sitting. (If you don’t have a porch, take a lawn chair out onto the lawn. That’s what a lawn chair is for – right?) Fresh Air. Birds singing. Neighbors passing by. It’s one of life’s simple joys. Sit on the porch with a loved one and double your pleasure.

2) Celebrate the summer. Enjoy the local festivities and fairs and make it special for your family.

3) Go on walks and hikes. This is the time to get our bodies limbered up and our hearts pumping. Not many of us get enough of this kind of exercise.

Our neighborhoods in Sanpete are “user friendly” for recreational walking. The hills and mountains are nearby and are great for aerobic hikes and terrific views of the valley.

4) Make homemade ice cream. I’m wondering if this is becoming a lost art. I’ve mentioned here before that my junior high school english teacher, Boyd Keisel, used to talk about hand cranking ice cream up on the Skyline Drive.

They would use the high elevation, mid-summer, snowbank ice to do the freezing of the ice cream. That place and method of making ice cream is still on my list of things to do. (Boyd passed away at age 89 a couple of years ago.)

5) Go Camping. We’re lucky here in Sanpete to have places that are close and safe for fun camping experiences. (Of course some people believe that just living in Sanpete qualifies as camping.)

6) Avoid sunburn, but get some sunshine. There must be some reason that people have worshipped the sun throughout history. I’ve heard it said that sunshine benefits a person in many ways from the delivery of vitamin D to increased sex drive. You be the judge.

7) Have a water fight. This is best when you are the aggressor and start the fight. First off, find someone who is out worshipping the sun.

Then, let fly with a water balloon or just water from the hose (if there is any water in your hose during this drought). Choose your victim carefully however, because these “fights” sometimes escalate and you never know who may or may not have weapons of mass destruction.

8) Picnic. Picnic is a noun and a verb. Look at that word and say it a few times. Sometimes it seems to me that we have lots of weird words in our language.

9) Ride a horse. My wife doesn’t have a horse anymore. But she rode one on a trip with a cousin to “The Holy Land” last May.

She was channeling her inner “Indiana Jones” at Petra, the famous archeological site, in Jordan. That’s my version of the story anyway. I do know plenty of people who believe that there are few pastimes more enjoyable than “horsing around.”

10) Go to the movies at the drive-in theater. We are lucky to have one of the few remaining drive-in movie theaters in Utah, right here in Sanpete.

The Basin Drive-In is a great place for a burger and a movie. We like to take lawn chairs and a boombox and sit right up front. I don’t know what those people on the back row are doing, but I’ve wondered if they’ve been in the sun too long (see No. 6 above). Maybe they just feel the need to be isolated to rest up – or something.

Well, there are a few ideas for you for the rest of this summer. I’m going to try to take some of my own advice and work on accomplishing some of these “goals.”

Remember what they say, “Make hay while the sun shines” (whatever that means). — Merrill