School starts in Converse County on Monday. Staff had three days of meetings that began on August 12.
Freshmen are asked to arrive at the University of Wyoming campus in Laradise today, August 16.
So let’s just admit it, summer in Wyoming is just one long halftime between the state track meet and football season.
That bucket list that I wrote out in hopes that maybe some of it would happen this summer might as well be shimmering bits of confetti.
We started with the most important thing, a quick trip to Wisconsin to check on Peggy Jane the Mom. Also had the best dinner of the summer there, at River’s Bend Steakhouse in Green Bay. It’s about 10 minutes from Mom’s old house and 5 minutes from her new assisted living digs.
The new thing this summer was the trip to southwest Wyoming for golf at Star Valley Ranch.
And the cool thing was the 50th reunion for Laramie High’s class of 1974.
That’s pretty much it.
But there was a lot of golf for Owen, although he would say it’s never enough.
And a lot of reading for me, with the back door wide open so I can hear what’s going on.
The sisters who used to be the leaders of the neighborhood crew, riding scooters in the parking lot and shooting hoops in their driveway at midnight, are now 21 and a senior in high school.
There are far fewer kids around and I miss that.
My friend is taking her firstborn to Laramie today and she is not okay. Another friend sent her oldest to Arizona to start college this week.
Time marches on, whether we try to stop it or slow it down.
I have been accused before of wishing my life away, never being satisfied with the place I am in, always eager for on to the next.
I counter argue that the Major League Baseball season is interminable, 162 games of misery if you’re in the Rocky Mountains.
Hockey starts in October and ends in June.
The NBA is equally as long.
And what do we oblong leatherheads get?
Eight games in high school, 12 plus a championship and a bowl if we’re lucky in college and 17 weeks in the NFL.
That’s it. So yeah, I am pretty anxious.
Two weeks from today is the first Friday. There’s never a better day than the Friday before a game day.
And I have always said that there is no more optimistic place on the face of the earth than a Friday night in Laramie before game day.
So long summer.
My gold wardrobe is clean and ready.
Time to fix the brown and gold porch.
