This month with lots of heat but no holidays still has
its virtues, insistently urging us to slow down or go dormant, to get away
from today�s supercharged pace of life, and enjoy the bounty of farm and
field and family.
August is the hardest month to capture in
image or imagination.
January�s fresh newborn welcomes the New Year, February�s
couple celebrates the warmth of love in the midst of cold, and March�s
leprechaun applauds the coming of spring with a wearing o� the green.
April�s images honor fools and trees and faith, May�s
explosion of flowers carpets the greening ground with the very essence of
glorious spring, and June�s pent-up pupils open the schoolhouse door,
freeing themselves and us to enjoy summertime�s leisure pursuits.
July�s Uncle Sam throws patriotic parties that dazzle
with the pomp and pop-pop-pop of fireworks, while September�s schoolmaster
heralds autumn and calls us back to our lives at home and school and work.
October�s cool breezes, meanwhile, wash over the
landscape and paint it with generous splashes of oranges and yellows and
reds.
November�s pious Pilgrims prompt us to thank our Maker
for bounteous blessings, while December�s angels and elves pull family and
friends together, around the warming hearth, to celebrate religious
traditions and to mark the close of another calendar year.
August, on the other hand � well, it�s a bit of an
outlier. It has no major holidays, and is best-known around these parts for
two things: heat and humidity. So calendar-makers who pride themselves on
pleasing images tend to use a beautiful sunrise or sunset to represent the
month, avoiding midday shots of undulating heat waves rising from crispy
grass or baked blacktop.
Nonetheless, August has its virtues, as we outline in
these eight reasons to appreciate the eighth month.
#8 It was named after the Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BC �
14 AD), whose reign marked the high point of Roman culture. Literary
luminaries such as Livy, Horace, Ovid and Virgil wrote classic works that
are still being read today.
#7 With kids out of school, it�s a great month for family
vacations. It�s also the last month the kids are out of school, which may
prompt a different sort of parental celebration.
#6 It joins July (with the masculine Julius and the
feminine Julia, Julie and Juliet) as the only two months that have both
masculine (August or Augustus, often shortened to Gus) and feminine
(Augusta) forms.
#5 Its name also has another meaning. August, of course,
is also an adjective that Mr. Webster has defined as �inspiring awe and
reverence; imposing and magnificent; worthy of respect because of age and
dignity, high position, etc.� Ironically, August may be the least �august�
of the months.
#4 Congress takes a recess during August, meaning our
elected representatives are not in Washington. In an age of partisanship and
gridlock, though, we�re not really sure how much difference their presence
in, or absence from, D.C. really makes.
#3 There are lots of good � and good for you � fresh
fruits and vegetables available in August. There are beans and squash and
okra and corn and peaches. Which leads, of course, to servings of butter
beans, and squash casserole, and fried okra, and corn on the cob with butter
and salt, and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. This lineup may be
August�s crowning glory.
#2 August�s unrelenting heat and humidity likely help us
to appreciate autumn and spring all the more.
#1 Finally, our favorite reason to remember and
appreciate August: It�s a great month for family reunions � twilight picnics
� fishing � baseball games � and electric cooperative annual meetings. In
fact, about a third of the electric cooperatives in Virginia hold their
annual meetings in August. Back in the 1930s and �40s, when cooperatives
were formed, August was a great time for the mostly rural member-owners of
cooperatives to get together and conduct the business affairs of their
utility, after spring planting and before fall harvest.
So here�s to this month of sun days, rich in classical
tradition, filled with leisure pursuits, serving us the fresh bounty of
field and orchard � and, in the end, delivering daily an often-unwelcome,
always-unvarnished helping of heat and humidity that, despite our
protestations, blessedly slows our life�s quickening, maddening pace, if
only for a few late-summer days.
