I don’t know why, but my summers as a kid seemed to go on forever. Now it feels like we get three weeks.

I remember jumping on the trampoline and swimming with my neighborhood friends. We’d hop from house to house on our bikes and roller blades, mostly staying outside in the dirt and bushes exploring bugs and hiding from our younger siblings. Sometimes we’d find our way inside and play video games or watch a movie in the air conditioning. 

They were summers of little league championship runs, balloon rallies, hunting rodents in our neighbor’s yards with BB guns and getting ice cream with my dad after hitting balls on the driving range at Crazy Horse Campground. 

The summers were endless back then — as much as the ’90s could be “back then.”

But today, in the 20-teens? We’re constantly hauling our kids around to summer school, little league practice, camps, tennis and everything else. It seems those activities take up so much time. Is this how my parents felt?

I didn’t notice the busyness of activities when I was young, but my kids are saying the “summer flew” and they dread it being over. Just 10 weeks after Memorial Day, summer truly does seem to be over.

School starts in a couple of weeks, and I’m thankful the kids will be back into our tax-funded educational daycare program. But then I start thinking of the state of our schools — and I don’t mean the teachers or the type of education — but the physical structures. My kids are at Northside and the middle school. Physical improvements can be made everywhere, and the administration and school board in Monroe are finally looking into real action to fix the other crumbling buildings — the high school and Abe.

While it would be nice to see these buildings stand for another 50 years, we have to be real. The last round of upgrades and renovations nearly 20 years ago might have looked good in the beginning, but somewhere along the way corners were cut and designs were flawed and today they are showing their ugly heads. Something’s got to give, and it’s probably going to have to come from our tax dollars. 

If I had LeBron’s money, I too would build a school in hopes of bettering our children and preparing them for the world. I would donate so much money the school could add teachers and classes to shrink classroom sizes. I’d bring back radio/TV and journalism classes, and make sure we’d offer four, five or even six world languages and not just two or three. I wish we as a society cared as much about giving our kids the joyous gift of learning how to problem solve and to think for themselves as we do making sure they have the “right answers.” Knowing how to find the answer, and navigating the detours that arise on that journey is the actual tough part of being an adult.

These were things I didn’t think about as a child in the ’90s. But today, my kids are asking me questions about budgets, and layoffs and austerity and “what do tariffs mean.” 

It’s a different world in today’s summer. 

My favorite season is no longer endless. High school football teams enter Week 1 next Friday. Volleyball, cross country, swimming, soccer — you name it, the high school fall sports season is here. Which is the signal that summer is over and school will be back in session.

While the warm temperatures will stick around most likely until October (or, if you’re me, hopefully November), it’s now autumn that seems to take an eternity. While I love football and the MLB playoffs, it is always a depressing time of year because that means winter is coming. 

At least we can keep the White Walkers at bay until well after Cheese Days.

— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and prefers the sound of lawnmowers to snow plows. He can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.