The Daily Stain

The Silly Season

I refer to the weeks at the end of May and first few weeks of June as the 'The Silly Season". It's akin to pro golf during the months of December and January before the PGA tour season begins. During that time frame there's all sorts of funky golf tournaments going on. There's the Skins tourney, usually some sort of mixed doubles tourney that features the top men and women golfers yucking it up for the camera as they play some golf course in a climate 50 degrees warmer than where I am. It has no bearing on their tour ranking, it's just a bunch of silly tourneys to give these guys a chance to puff up their already bloated bank accounts through obnoxious appearance fees.

Well, my silly season is all about the end of the school year for my kids. Because this is the time where the "last school meeting for this that and the other thing; the spring vocal and band concerts; the field trips where we have to fork over $25 to $30 or more a clip PLUS provide a bag lunch; the playoffs for softball and the after softball season party, the final school project that requires the full square footage of my SUV to haul to and from the school. And for some reason it all seems to take place on a Wednesday night starting at 6:30 p.m. requiring both my wife and I to be in two places at the same time.

But, as quickly as it started, we hear that famous melody played and sung by a true American icon of the Arts, Alice Cooper; "school's out for the summer!!!..." and the Silly Season comes to an end. Thank God because it always makes me grumpy.

So to all parents with school aged children, I wish you a happy end of the silly season and here's to a summer full of ....day camp. I'm beginning to think that I just live in a perpetual Silly Season.