August BBQs

When the days start growing shorter and the nights have an autumn crispness about them, I am often  reminded of the BBQs we used to have on our backyard patio. The kids would drink soda and eat hamburgers and hotdogs on the run. The adults would have more contemplative beverages and sit around our picnic table eating salad along with their charcoal cooked entrees.

It was only many years later that I grew to understand how they could sit and just talk for hours on end. We would innocently come up to the table from time to time and ask what they were doing and if they wanted to catch fireflies or investigate something but their response was always the same: you kids go on and play, we are having a nice time just talking.

My parents and their friends were happy to watch us play and be with one another. It's only in hindsight do you see the wisdom inherent in these simple pleasures from another era. A time where no cell phones were around to interrupt the conversation or computer games to distract the kids. We were all outside where it was cooler than in the house. Bedtimes were only enforced when we had run out of energy and the adults felt compelled to go home. Nobody wanted the night to end but we all knew there was only so much one could have of a good thing. Whether it was a rapid sequence of children's games or the more the more sedate pace of adult's conversation; we all knew these nights had to eventually come to an end.

August BBQs were times we reluctantly gave up when school began just after Labor Day. We could have done one or two more in September but the days would have been even shorter and the nights might be too cool for extended conversations. It was easier in August to hold a BBQ with our neighbors, and if it rained we could laugh it off and move under the cover offered by our garage. In September the pace seemed quicker and we were less tolerant for inconsistencies in the weather. While the waning days of August had us feeling more capable of handling the elements. We knew the summer was almost over and the time for BBQs accompanied by long conversations around the picnic table was fleeting. These particular occasions come racing back to mind whenever the August nights begin to feel relaxed and the summer's heat only a mild distraction. I realize now that my preference is for the picnic table and the adult conversation. Though an August BBQ will also make me a little envious of the children who can run till they are exhausted, and from time to time ask the adults if we want to stop our talking and join them in their discovery of the neighborhood.