It’s that time of the year again.
The days are getting shorter, nights are getting cooler and television and radio commercials for back-to-school specials are becoming more and more prevalent.
I can remember my first summer after I graduated from college: it was my intent to really enjoy it and not rush into working right away. I spent weekends in Montreal, a week in the Dominican Republic, golfed almost twice weekly and took trips to my friends’ cottages.
That summer seemed to last forever and I can recall laughing when back-to-school ads started up, and thinking, “this must be what real life is like.”
Wrong. Fast forward to present day and back-to-school ads now are just a reminder as to how fast the summer passes by.
I heard the first one of this year on the radio while driving. I had to do a double-take and quickly came to the snap-realization of, “Wow, it’s already the middle of August? Where did the summer go?”
I’m actually envious of the school kids who get to go back to something, because that would insinuate they actually had a vacation to be coming back from.
Life in the working world doesn’t allow for a summer vacation (unless you’re a teacher or a professional hockey player), instead my summers now are made up of fleeting moments that I can’t really recall what year they even happened, they all kind of blend together.
This year, however, will definitely be one that stays imprinted in my memory with a date stamp permanently etched. This will forever be the summer that I moved to Alberta.
It feels like it was just weeks ago that the news was dominated by flooding in southern Alberta and I too was chasing down stories with an Airdrie focus. Hard to believe that all happened on June 22, two months ago, not two weeks.
I got my first real taste of what the western lifestyle is all about when I covered the Airdrie Pro Rodeo on the Canada Day long weekend, I can recall the sights, sounds and smells of the rodeo grounds as if I was just there this past weekend.
The Airdrie Regional Air Show was another experience of a lifetime as I was given a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into putting on a show of its magnitude and was also treated to a flight with Alberta’s Team Rocket Aerobatics pilot Ken Fowler.
Then there was the Calgary Stampede; so many plaid shirts and Stetson hats, so much country music, so many beers. One of the best experiences of my life to date despite the fact that I have never worn a Stetson unless it was Halloween and have never been a fan of country music. However, beer and I, we get along just fine.
The atmosphere and just the all-around positive and happy aura at the Calgary Stampede is something I can’t really put in to words, you just have to experience it for yourself, and the fact that the city put on such an event just weeks after being ravaged by flooding was all the more impressive.
Thankfully, it didn’t rain all summer as I thought it might when I first arrived in late-May and I was able to get in a good amount of golfing at a couple of courses.
With Labour Day weekend upcoming, I have a friend from back home in Mississauga, Ontario coming to visit and put an end to a summer that has flown by but has still managed to leave me with some great memories.
