July 4: So, I knew it was summer

I always know when summer is approaching. My eyes and nose and ears and soft palate will tell me long before the calendar does.

See, I am a seasonal allergy sufferer. Pity me, please, because I want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to say "oh you poor dear" whenever you see me slogging my way through late June. I have gone to church with cold wet facecloths, which I drape over my eyes with my head resting on the back of the pew while preacher man screams Sinners in the hands of an angry God.

In church today, the preacher said that nothing is left to chance, that the good Lord determines every single aspect of our lives. If that's true, then God must have decided that it was well and good to mess with my head (literally) for three weeks of every year. I'm not mad at God; I am Biblically versed enough to know what God says to those of who see fit to challenge Him (hint: Job, chapters 38 through 41) so I guess I just have to assume there's some sort of divine methodology in this.

And hooray, but it looks like Yale University is walking in lockstep with John Calvin. Get a load of this: 

"Seasonal allergies may be a sign that your immune system is doing what nature intended it to do — protect you against environmental toxins that are far more harmful than pollen. The body’s defense arsenal consists of different types of immune responses to deal with various classes of pathogens. Type 1 immunity — which battles viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa — relies primarily on directly killing pathogens or infected host cells. Type 2 immunity protects against external environmental challenges by spurring the body’s T cells and antibodies into action to fight the irritant. The problem is, type 2 immunity can go into overdrive when inadvertently activated by environmental antigens such as pollen. Hay fever sufferers know the consequences all too well: The allergens such as pollen trigger an over-production of histamine, resulting in the coughing, sneezing, runny noses, and all-round misery that afflict them most severely in the spring and fall."

Ruslan Medzhitov, professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, said: “We believe that allergic hypersensitivity evolved to survey the environment for the presence of noxious substances. After the first exposure, the immune system gains a memory, and subsequent exposure to even minute amounts will induce an anticipatory response that helps minimize potentially harmful effects.” He added that such responses also encourage avoidance of the environment that contains the noxious substance. “According to this view, hypersensitivity to allergens triggers avoidance of a sub-optimal environment,” Medzhitov explained.

 I never got sick with buggabugga but I know lots of people who did. So the lesson is give thanks to the Lord in everything, even when your whole head feels like a hay fever snot factory.

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To switch gears for a second, I knew it was summer when the teachers at school stopped taking themselves so seriously. We all knew that they had 200 days to teach us the entire curriculum and that they probably got it all out around day 193 or so. That last week of school was more about fun than learning. We'd go to school and find ourselves playing 7-Up or dodgeball instead of learning how to do long division.

While I'm on the topic, maybe I'll just go ahead and say that 7-Up may be my favourite game ever. When one of your classmates touched your thumb, that was a major life changing event. It meant that you mattered. In Grade 1, Joanne Green touched my thumb and I knew it was her. Joanne Green liked me.

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I also knew it was summer when mom and dad started talking about making a trip to the lake. This meant Jackfish Lake, which is situated just west of the resort village of Cochin somewhere in central Saskatchewan. Grandma and grandad had a cottage on Delorme's Beach, which was on the lake's eastern shore, and visiting that lake was always the highlight of my summer. My family has gone on plenty of vacations - been to Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm and Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon - but it's grandma and grandad's cottage that I remember the most fondly.

 That is a picture of me on the hilltop overlooking Jackfish Lake. It is one of my favourite places in the world, filled with white magic, and I doubt I will ever go there again. I was 26 when that picture was taken. Sometimes people ask me who took that picture and I tell them God took it. They don't believe it even though I think that picture is the closest God has ever come to being photographed by me. The truth is that I took it myself. I used a tripod and an old Nikon with a primitive timer. A girl named Malona de Mathias may have been lurking in the background. She tells me that if you look at that picture long enough, you can see wings sprouting from my back, but I think she's being silly.

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At the lake, I learned to water ski. At the lake, I went fishing with grandad. I caught a fish and my family ate it that night. I was 10. It was the first time ever when I fed my family rather than it being the other way around.

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And all that is at least 20 years in the rearview and I am here to tell you that these days, I know it's summer when the splash pads open again. As long as the weather is hot enough, my kid would be happy to spend the entirety of July and August at the splash pad at Paul Rozon Park in Williamstown. I'll set myself up at the picnic table under the shelter and maybe I'll read a book or do some writing or work on a magic trick or do some newspaper stuff. And once again, the summer will race by like a runaway train highballing its way through an abandoned station. While it does, I might think about that picnic table on top of the hill at Jackfish Lake. I'll wonder if it gets lonely and if it's ever seen any angels.