Summer Blues Will Soon Turn White

Posted by Mitch Kaplan Jul 21, 2006

So, I'm down on the treadmill, walking at as fast a pace and as high an angle of incline as I can, trying to shake off the effects of a strained calf muscle, when I realize that nearly a month has passed since mid-summer's even, the longest day of the year.

Aha! I say to myself. We're well on our way back to winter!

Each summer, I mark the passing of the mid-summer's even with a little verbal ritual. Come the morning of June 22, I greet my wife with a hearty "Good morning" followed by "it's a great day, eh?"

"Why," she always responds, forgetting the date or my little game. Or both.

"Because today the days begin getting shorter. We're on our way back to winter!"

Okay, marking the beginning of shorter days might seem a bit extreme even for a winter lover. But, I know what kind of weather is coming through New Jersey in the next two months. And I need something-some kind of carrot-to get me through it.

In fact, I spend all summer being teased by and about winter.

Teased by press releases about new developments at ski areas.

Teased by news telling me what a great snow year last season was in so many places and how successful the wintersports year was.

Teased by articles to write about what's coming for next winter when the temperature outside my window is over 90.

Teased by photos of record snow dumps in New Zealand.

And South America.

And, last week, one of my kid's friends walks into my kitchen, fresh back from California, and tells me that Mammoth Mountain still has a ten-foot snow base. In mid-July.

It's enough to make a person take a cold bath.

But, not to worry. I've been hammering away at my golf game, and in two weeks I'll be in Maine at Sunday River and Sugarloaf chasing the little white ball around. And I'll take solace from the ski runs up on the mountains.

And the, two weeks after that, I'll be off to New Zealand, where it really is winter, and I'll ski like crazy.

And I'll be happier when I get back.

Because, by then, we'll be two months closer to snowtime than we were at mid-summer's eve.