Longtime residents of upstate Washington call the bad case of the drizzles we've had throughout much of June "Seattle sunshine.''
What some in our northeast corner have been calling it I can't say in print, but enough already. The calendar tells us that the Fourth of July is tomorrow and it really is time to get on with summer because as soon as we put its dog days behind us, we can savor the falling of the year.
There was a time when I suffered along with others eager to do summer things, among them launching early and hauling anchor to test the ocean breezes in June, only to face the realities of miserable conditions day in, day out, that kept boats curtsying to the shifting tides on their moorings. Now I take personal comfort in commiserating with frustrated owners for not having to face what they've faced this spring.
As for comfort taking, let's put June behind us and turn our pleasure meters up from whatever depths the weather and a continuing drum of souring TV blather has taken us these past several months.
"What's this?'' someone's asking. "Plante's gone Pollyanna on us? Doesn't he know the sky really is falling? The polar ice cap is melting away? The economy's in the toilet? Everybody hates us? And Michael Jackson is mysteriously DEAD? MICHAEL JACKSON?!!!
So I have heard. How could anyone not have? Bad news sells — over and over and over. It sells doom and gloom, doom and gloom. The bizarre sells. Fear sells. Tragedies sell. Disease sells. Crime sells. Angst sells. Anything that threatens our sense of well-being sells, and market share being all important, marketeers respond.
We escape however we can — the handiest by way of that tiny, electronic gizmo we click on to tap up the genies that whisk us to wherever and whomever to help us over the hurdle of the moment around the bends in our quest for relief from whence to whence.
Ah, escape!
The nation bought into it big time last November with what amounted to universal world acclaim with the election of Barack Obama.
More good news for those still interested in the most indigestible of our foreign affairs? Our troops turned the keys to Iraq's cities over to the Iraqis and began their retirement to outlying areas, there to stand by while they sort out what remains of their differences.
But enough with that.
Want to get away? Turn off the gizmos. Going for a walk? Leave the ear pieces behind, take to the countryside and listen to what comes naturally. No peace in the world? Bushwack!
Whoops! Slip of the tongue there, George. Sorry — no pun intended.
True peace is internal and needs nourishment, so let's nourish it.
Have you really walked the charm of Newbury, Newburyport or Amesbury yet? Have you discovered all that's discoverable? Have you picnicked in Moseley Woods? Cashman Park? No? Bring folding chairs, lunch basket and dine along the river under the trees. Want to woods-walk along an almost unused footpath? There are all the wonders of Maudslay, of course, but try Crow Lane beyond the sacrilegiously abused once-upon-a-time meadow now reviled as the Newburyport dump site.
Amesbury has its River Walk, but Pleasant Valley Road borders miles of the Merrimack, a delight from Point Shore to its southernmost ending in Merrimacport.
Interested in history? Steep yourself in it from the Custom House and the Historical Society in Newburyport to Whittier country in Amesbury.
Biking is your thing? Miles and miles of country roads within modestly trafficked reaching.
Escape? You bet — to reality and all of it free of other than what you bring to it. Just leave the battery-fed gottahavits at home and savor. Given what we've had for weather, there should be plenty of sunshine ahead, but bring some of your own to it.
¢¢¢
Bill Plante is former executive editor of Essex County Newspapers. His e-mail address is plantejr@comcast.net.
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