{"id":2474,"date":"2013-08-08T19:48:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T23:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=2474"},"modified":"2013-08-08T19:48:02","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T23:48:02","slug":"lamenting-summer-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=2474","title":{"rendered":"Lamenting the End of Summer Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"100_7488\"<\/a>This may come as a surprise to those of you who live in areas where school doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start until after Labor Day, but we are gearing up for the new school year here on the island.<\/p>\n

In summary, this bites.<\/p>\n

I am, after all, one who firmly believes that God put the idea of summer vacation from school in the minds of those who originally brought it into being partly for the edification of humankind and mostly for my own edification.<\/p>\n

While I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve dedicated a large part of my life to the furtherance of our educational system, a system I hold in high regard, I do believe some of the best parts of ourselves have come not just from the classroom, but also from the extended periods in life where we give our minds free reign to lead themselves for a while. Whether it is hours spent wading through creeks, or afternoons spent exploring on two wheels, or a summer spent building a clubhouse, all these things can have just as much value as my instructions on reading Hamlet, or writing thesis statements, or undangling those participles. There is immense profit in just letting one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind go where it was designed to go, but go alone, or go at least without structure or formal interference. And to be sure, there are other ways in which we create environments that allow free thought to flourish. But summer break, with its unending days of unfettered living, is among the most fertile ground for this that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever crossed.<\/p>\n

So it was with satisfaction that I read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Endless Summer<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rick Bragg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest article in his Southern Journal column in Southern Living<\/a><\/em>. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all need to read it, too.<\/p>\n

He calls the Augusts of his childhood \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the most endless month of those forever summers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then, noting the August start dates of so many schools now, he asks, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So when did it all change? When did the summers grow short, truncated? When did the endless month of August become not even a month at all but a jumping-off place for the season to come?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

As a man who sees truth, he correctly determines, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They say it has to do with air-conditioning, but I know sadism when I see it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

On several occasions, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read Bragg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column to LCB over our morning coffee. More than once, in one short page, Bragg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s managed to acquaint us with both laughter and tears. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My Empty Nest<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by the way, is a personal favorite. We tend to see eye to eye on these sorts of things, and as bonus, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the whole Pulitzer thing going for him, so intellectually, I believe crying over a Bragg piece beats crying over a sap-laden commercial (something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done regularly, despite my own disgust).<\/p>\n

So yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve liked Rick Bragg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column ever since he began writing it, and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expecting that to change when I picked up his latest installment. But with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Endless Summer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he became a man after my own heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may come as a surprise to those of you who live in areas where school doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start until after Labor Day, but we are gearing up for the new school year here on the island. In summary, this bites. I am, after all, one who firmly believes that God put the idea of summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1023,1],"tags":[1528,105,100,1530,1526,1532,1531,1527,1529],"class_list":["post-2474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-islandlife","tag-i-love-summer-vacation","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-loving-summer-vacation","tag-my-favorite-southern-living-column","tag-rick-braggs-southern-living-column","tag-the-advantages-of-summer-vacation","tag-the-end-of-summer","tag-where-did-august-go"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}