We should all just cool down a little bit

Got no boat

Got no swimming pool.

Got no chance for outdoor fun.

Quit yer moping!

Got a garden hose?

Got a sprinkler?

Then you’ve got yourself an outdoor party.

(Sorry, still not much by way of sports to watch)

Let’s face it, even with the slightly cooler temperatures the last couple of days, it has been awfully hot. What did we have, seven or eight straight days in the ’90s? In the words of the late, great weatherman Sonny Eliot, combine the incessant heat with the blanketing humidity and speaking personally as a 65-year-old, you’ve got

Sweating to the Oldies.

But you don’t have to feel old, no matter what the calendar says.

Grab a pair of shorts or a bathing suit.

Open the freezer.

Pick out a Popsicle.

Do you prefer a cherry moustache or an orange goatee?

Head outside and hook up the hose. Turn the faucet on.

Run through the sprinkler. There’s not an age range for that.

It is time to have some fun. Let’s get out from under these clouds.

The clouds of uncertainty that are hanging over this country, that is.

The COVID-19 pandemic is tough enough to deal with. Social distancing might be the most difficult. Four grandkids and grandma and I have not hugged any of them since mid-March. We visit, but it is from afar. It is like a middle school dance where every move is tentative.

But more than 100,000 have died. We are all trying to stay as safe as possible.

So the masks, the gloves, the constant hand washing have been tough to deal with but they are necessary.

It is not just that. There are a lot of other things going on in this country. The Black Lives Matter movement has scraped the scab off our history of racial inequality. Protests abound. People are pulling guns on other people in the parking lot of fast food restaurants.

Is it my imagination or are we just nastier to one another than we used to be? People

have disagreed since the dawn of time so that is no excuse. Did Eve really take a malicious bite out of an apple, or was she just the first person to have a hankering for a slice of a Golden Delicious adorned with peanut butter?

Everything and everyone is way, way too serious and confrontational.

So let’s go back to when we were kids. No matter what our age.

Everybody is a friend.

Grab a swimsuit.

Hook up the hose and sprinkler.

Ninety degrees feels wonderful when served with some icy cold water.

Let’s up the ante some. Does anyone still have a Slip ’N Slide? Honest to Evel Knievel who hasn’t had a blast hurtling

along the grass on one of those watered down sheets of plastic sometime in their lives?

Too much speed and you go flying off the far end like a ski jumper gone loco. Not enough velocity and you bog down in midtrip like an ’04 Taurus with a busted fuel line.

Let the kids take their turn. Let the grandkids go, too. But do not stop there. Come on, mom, the Slip ’N Slide is beckoning. Come on, dad, forget the furloughs and the layoffs and the blankety blanking unemployment checks that somehow seem to be perpetually AWOL. It is time for the Slip ’N Slide.

You too, grandma. Hop aboard, grandpa. My mom is 92 and if it was not for a bum hip, I swear

she, too, would go sliding across the grass compliments of Wham-O.

So let’s get out and have fun. Keep the group small. Wear a face mask if you want. Don’t wear one if you don’t want to. Political discussions are banned. Nothing said about Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden. Protest signs must be parked at the front door.

A round of Popsicles for everyone. They are on me.