The end of Summer

It is several weeks before summer ends, but the feeling of summer ending fills my days.

In my childhood, The Canadian National Exhibition marked the transition of the summer life into real life: or was it the other way round. The CNE was the last gasp of another world. Candy floss, Shopsey's corned beef sandwiches, the filling of a large bag of free samples from the Pure Food Building. There were more people in that one building than I had seen all summer.

My mother remembering the fall outbreaks of polio, only years before, was always on alert for the dirty. She was always pro mud and mess in my daily adventures, but the Exhibition was something else. No bright red candy apples for me. She had no idea how the apples were washed before they were candied. What is more she would always say I had no idea where those man's hands could have been. She was right. I had no idea, but she certainly had a variety of possibilities that she didn't share with me.

When the Exhibition was over the end was nigh. There would be the last trip to the cottage for Labour Day Weekend. Then the brown oxfords were polished, the new green knee socks were laid out and some combination of a plaid skirt and white cotton blouse were set out at ready.

I didn't hate school, but there were a lot of places I would rather be. By three o'clock I transfixed by the hands of the solemn plain clock that hung beneath Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. The only hand that seemed to move was the second hand. Eventually, the big hand made it to the bottom of the clock. There was no homework in those days, with the exception of learning spelling words , so I was free until the next morning at nine o'clock.

I often had to take a second try going down the school stairs to show I could walk without running. I was always anxious to grasp every moment of liberation. Then boom, I was outside in the fresh air and sunshine collecting the shiny chestnuts that had fallen from the school trees.

Summer became a far off past memory and lay so faraway in the future that  was somehow unreal. Halloween and Christmas called to children as the days got colder. But the magic of endless summer days disappeared.

I don't think I am any better at transitions than I was all those years ago. For some reason Gala Days doesn't have the same power as a seasonal demarcation.