June 30 is a depressing day on my calendar. Not because of taxes. Not because of deadlines. Not because it is a Tuesday this year, although that doesn’t help. No, June 30 was the day that, as a kid, I realized summer was already one-third over. Talk about a buzzkill.
It felt like we had just hauled the snow shovels to the back of the garage, stuffed the stocking hats into a closet and declared victory over another Iowa winter.
Then, suddenly, June was gone. Somehow, that still seems to happen every year.
Now, before you calendar experts start composing nasty emails to me, I realize that summer does not officially begin until the summer solstice, around June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. Longest day of the year. Astronomical summer. Tilt of the Earth. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. But if you grew up in Iowa, you probably know that was not how summer worked.
Summer started on Memorial Day. It ended on Labor Day. Those were the rules. The only exception was when too many snow days pushed the school year deeper into June, forcing us to waste precious sunshine by being indoors learning long division instead of riding bicycles or catching bullheads.
For generations, that Memorial Day-to-Labor Day schedule was as dependable as mosquitoes at dusk and sunburns after a day at the pool. School let out, kids disappeared until supper, Little League games filled the days and life slowed to the pace it was supposed to.
Then somebody decided to reinvent the calendar. School districts started inching classes backwards into August. Others tinkered with start dates, breaks and schedules that had worked perfectly well for decades, back when Iowa proudly ranked among the nation's educational leaders. Apparently, if something works for a century, it is probably time to “improve” it.
Even so, June 30 still sneaks up on me every year with the same message: You had better get moving. There is still fishing to do. Books to read. The garage project I promised would only take a weekend. The family cookouts, baseball games, bike rides and evenings sitting outside doing absolutely nothing except watching the fireflies.
Whether you define the end of summer by the astronomical calendar in late September or the meteorological calendar on Aug. 31, the truth is the same. Summer has a way of accelerating just when we finally settle into it.
So, if your lawn chair is still folded, your grill is collecting dust or your vacation days are waiting to be used, consider this your friendly reminder: Tomorrow is July.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and thank you for reading (and listening). | 
