If it’s summer in Maine, yep, it’s time for a little E.B White

The fade-proof lake behind the store, just like in E.B. White’s day.

I’ll keep this short, because I know you want to get outside.

Yes, somehow summer has arrived, with all the wonders of that short and glorius season in Maine — the humidity, the browntail moth rash, the cars with out-of-state plates going 50 down my speed limit 20 one-lane street.

Some things never change.

In fact, I always think that when spring turns to summer in my town. And if you’ve been reading this blog for a few years, you know where I’m going with this. One of Maine’s best-ever writers, E.B. White, wrote an essay about my town 80 years ago, “Once More to the Lake.” He’d taken his 10-year-old son to the scene of his own childhood summers, and was moved by how little had changed.

And, eight decades later, much of it is still the same. I have yet to find something that captures that feeling of summer, whether it’s in my town or yours, than the words White wrote:

“Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever…”

Now get out there and enjoy it, because you know it’ll be over shortly.