A summer place

It must be summer at last.

Sailfest fireworks lit up the night sky Saturday. Parking is at a premium in Sound View. On the Fourth of July Ocean Beach Park had a record crowd. The summer classics of southeastern Connecticut are rolling out: the North Stonington Agricultural Fair, Mystic Seaport’s wooden boat show, the Niantic LobsterFest, the Hamburg Fair.

The weekend’s sparkling weather finally chased away the rainyday feeling of June and made it official: Summertime has come. The fish are jumpin’, and while it might be a bit much to say the livin’ is easy, letting go for a little while is simpler this time of year.

The ocean is rising and warming, and that’s a serious threat. But feeling how cool and delicious it is on a hot afternoon will make you appreciate it even more. Highways need repair, but once you get to the lake you won’t be thinking about it. State parks were threatened with closure, but they’re open. Connecticut has no state budget, but that won’t stop you from buying roadside corn and having a cookout.

Friends and family are re-emerging from their winter habitats and making more memories for the next generations to keep, because where you spend your summer as a kid is where you feel most at home as a grownup.

Every few years the subject of year-round schools comes up, with some expert pointing out that the long summer vacation is a holdover from our agricultural past, when children were needed to help plant and harvest the crops for the family livelihood. But as any former child knows, summer break doesn’t have to justify what it does for the soul.

Summer makes clear a simple fact that is easy to forget when our heads are filled with obligations and calculations and worries of our own and of the world: We are lucky to be right here. How good it is to live at the beach.