633. The real first day of summer

Lots of people have their own ideas about when summer begins, often differing from the official timetable of solstices and equinoxes which were observed about sixteen days ago. For some, that period between Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, as I was taught) and Labor Day constitutes "summer." Roughly three months, it is an equal number of days as that between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. For others it is once the kids are out of school, roughly the same time period as between the holidays. Some may measure summer's commencement by the first day the temperature rises into the 90s, something it did here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606 long before the official beginning. For me, there is another date of demarcation - the day you pick the first ripe tomato from your garden and proceed to eat it straight from the vine. For me, that day was today. And eating those tomatoes off the vine on a hot July afternoon was, well, as Al Purnell used to say about his mama's sausages made out in Simpsonville, "it's good!"