Triple Digits

"Triple digits," as a statement its meaning is clear. Its use is a warning as much as anything. Or is it an excuse, an explanation or reason?

 The lakeshore filling to capacity well before noon; a tiny town of tents and pop-up easy-ups. Music, laughter, loud talk, the blare of a vuvuzela above it all. Swimmers pack in to a roped-off area of the lake, a school of sardines splashing around in shallow waters. I can't help but smile at their enthusiastic play. A hundred feet away the trail veers away from the water edge, the crowds suddenly gone. The hills are not where people want to be this day and untrodden dust rises from a single pair of passing tires. Heat presses down and radiates back up, two times the sizzle. Tactile and auditory at the same time. I can feel the heat, and hear it? It is a trick the cicada's like to play. Or is it a trick? After all they only emerge when the days are the hottest. They are as much a part of the sensory impact of the summer season as the heat, the sun, the dry grass, dun earth, rising dust, thirst and sweat.

a day for an easy ride, nothing more strenuous than the climb of Fatt Hill

okay, so I ain't gonna to wake one morning to find my name on no list for

grammatarian of the year but... my what is there, now?