By Kirk Ross
Editor

The heat is bearing down already and those afternoon showers that truly deserve the name “cloudbursts” are beginning to roll ‘round to slick up the streets and coat the pavement with a low-hanging layer of steam.

The creeks are lazy, as they usually are here, and University Lake and Cane Creek are dropping slowly (for now at least), while rowboats, canoes and sculling crews ply their waters.

And even for the most vigorous of gardeners, the raw power of photosynthesis is quickly outstripping human control.

The insect world, too, is rocking, and as cicadas emerge, junebugs dance and fireflies entice, the chorus — please don’t call it cacophony — heralds the new season.

If spring is romance, summer is passion — the Earth at its friskiest, complete with crashing thunder and fireworks.

This is the time to celebrate life and bust out of the habits formed in winter’s cavern.

The flicker of the television, the lure of the Xbox are just distractions from the real show — the stars at night, sunsets over fields in full flower and everywhere something to do when evening sets in.

This is when we can remind ourselves as well as show the youngsters around us that play is every bit a part of our nature as toil and a good bit more agreeable.

This is the time to remember that a vacation is not an itinerary or a to-do list, but an invitation to step outside of convention and routine — a chance to explore something you never knew would interest you or learn something without even trying.

This is when the regimens of the school year no longer rein us in, when things happen off-schedule and a sudden jaunt out for ice cream or a run to the nearest pool or beach is a perfectly natural impulse.

This is the Summer of 2007. And it will only happen once