Summer Heat, July 4th, Thinking The Things

We’re officially in July.

Halfway point of the year 2025, which seems crazy as my brain is still somewhere back at the end of March or early April. That chug of time keeps on chugging, whether you’re ready or not. I think Spring has officially become that one week between cold and hot. There doesn’t seem to be our gradual climb in temps anymore; that buffer between uncomfortable temps. It’s now just too cold or too hot, and right now we’re at too hot.

Last week I didn’t do any walking due to the fact it was over 100 degrees with the heat index, not to mention some mystery allergies that were causing my head to feel like it was going to pop like some kid’s birthday balloon that was overfilled with party shop helium. It was pretty miserable, honestly. My wife was feeling it as well, and we were both popping Sudafed like it was going out of style. By Saturday we both needed to just get the hell out of dodge, so we threw a few things in the car and headed north to New Buffalo, Michigan to hit the beach. She wanted to go swimming and I was good with manning the beach towel on the sand. Between each of our work situations we were burnt out and needed to melt some stress in the summer sun.

Yeah, I’m not sure what I was thinking but by the time we hit gridlock on the main drag that goes thru New Buffalo I’d realized we should have left at 6am if we would have wanted to be able to park in the town limits. New Buffalo is a tourist town, and attracts people from Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the summer. We were pretty much screwed in regards to parking anywhere near the beach, so once we made it down to the beach parking lot we knew it wasn’t happening. We drove around some incredibly huge houses then made it back to the main highway. We ate a pretty expensive, subpar meal at a brewery called Ghost Isle then made our way back to Indiana.

The drive was nice, so there was that.

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The Fourth of July is Friday. This is my last day of work for the week as I took Thursday off, and the Fourth is a paid company holiday. The Fourth, much like Christmas, seems to have lost the reason for the season. Patriotism has given way to Nationalism here, with consumerism just a minor explosion away from losing a thumb or finger. I haven’t cared about blowing things up since I was probably 10, yet you have full grown men and women(but mostly men) wearing their “Don’t Tread On Me” shirts and American flag shorts spending upward of $1,000 on explosives to “ooh” and “ahh” at, all the while never getting what Independence Day really means anymore. The freedom to live how you want and worship how you want and be who you want to be or be with who you want to be with. These same sparkler-waving, freedom lovers want to take freedoms away from people that they don’t agree with. They seem to be cool with Gestapo-like, mask wearing dark army thugs going around big cities pulling people out of their cars or homes or workplaces or even in front of courthouses and making them disappear. But if Big Brother tells them to stay home because of a worldwide pandemic or to wear a mask in Lowes it’s as if you asked them to hand over their guns or their first born.

Hypocrites.

I’m glad I was born here, and up to about 10 years ago I accepted that politics was always going to be shady and ugly at times. But regardless of mud slinging or name calling we were still all Americans. Bad apples? Sure. But up to that point we hadn’t just yet militarized and normalized our most based hatred. We hadn’t yet turned racism, bigotry, and xenophobic tendencies into a political statement. Hell, a political party. Republicans have morphed into something dark, dumb, and mean-spirited to its core. And Democrats are doing very little to stop it from metastasizing into a malignant growth that we can’t remove without killing the whole body. I have little to no faith in our political system, and we’re seeing where late-stage capitalism is taking us. The boom times are gone, and Black Friday II : Another Swan Dive Off A Building is just around the corner, soon to be at every Multiplex in the country.

So Happy Fourth to all who celebrate.

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So what are we doing to celebrate the big blow ’em up holiday? Today we’re taking my mom and dad out for my mom’s birthday. She turns 76 today, so we’re heading to our favorite Mexican restaurant after work and eating some fine Mexican cuisine. We were supposed to go the Wednesday before Thanksgiving last year, but my mom caught Covid after avoiding it for 4 years. Then it seemed like one thing after another happened; more illnesses, losing our dog, more Covid, Bronchitis, and then next thing you know it’s 8 months later. I guess better late than never.

Thursday is massage day, which I’ve been looking forward to. Work has taken its toll on me, especially working by myself since the first of May. Thursday night will just be a chill evening with some music spinning and a beer or two.

Friday the Fourth nothing is planned. My wife is judging some floatilla contest Friday evening, but instead of boats its golf carts. One of the nearby lakes does this every year and my wife has been asked to judge the last couple. She asked if I wanted to go as well. Ehh. I don’t know. The lakers annoy me with driving these carts on county roads, so I’m not sure I’m the right person to judge their golf cart that looks like a tank or a clown car.

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Last Monday I bought some new music gear. A good friend at work that retired back in January called me up and said his older brother was moving and had some music gear he wanted to get rid of. Didn’t want a fortune for it, but didn’t want to get ripped off either. I told him to send me some photos and I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The main thing I was interested in was an 80s Tokai Strat copy made in Japan. His brother bought it brand new in the 80s for $299. If you don’t know, Japan made some extremely solid guitar copies in the 70s and 80s. My first electric was a Fender Squier Strat, made in 1986. These were made as well as the American guitars and at 3/4 the price of an American made one. Tokai was a smaller Japanese guitar manufacturer, but their reputation for making great sounding and playing Gibson and Fender copies was well known. I’d never heard of them, so I did some research and found out those guitars in good condition were getting anywhere from $800 to $1,200 on used sites.

He also had a Musicman 212 HD One-Thirty guitar amp. Same era, the 80s. In good condition those are worth a couple grand. They are highly regarded as they were designed by Leo Fender and were seen as a next gen version of the Fender Custom Twin Reverb.

I didn’t think I was even in the running with this stuff, but I told my buddy I’d think about it and shoot him an offer in a day or two. I did tell him he could get a lot more for this stuff if he wanted to. He replied a little later that $500 would get me the guitar and the amp. Well, damn. He had himself a deal.

The guitar is in impeccable condition. Well worth the $500 alone. It plays like a dream and sounds incredible. Forgot how much I love Strats. The amp is a little rough. It needs some work, but I have a guy that can do it. I think investing in it and getting it up and running is worth it, so I’m going to take it to my repair guy and he’s going to do the work. Oh, and my buddy’s brother threw in and old DOD Envelope Filter and an 80s MXR all-analog guitar effects processor. It needs a little tweaking as well, but I’m game.

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Going into July I’m a little sad I guess. Melancholy, wistful, and hanging in nostalgia and memories of the kids being younger. The first marked one month until my son and his girlfriend move out and head to Indianapolis. Her classes are set up and they have officially signed a lease for an apartment. They kind of made their move-in plans before saying anything to us, so neither of us can get August 1st off. We’re paying for the U-Haul, and we’ll get the truck loaded the Thursday before at our house. Then they’ll take the truck over to his girlfriend’s parents house and her parents will go down with them Friday to move them in. I feel bad that we can’t help, but I figure it’s just as much work loading it up as it is moving it in.

Of course I’m worried about them. First time out of the nest, paying their own bills, buying their own groceries, and being fully responsible adults. And not only that, but over 2 hours away from us. Nice thing is that they’re only 10 minutes from the college his girlfriend is going to, and they’re only 10 minutes away from our oldest and their girlfriend. I’m very happy about that.

I’m also just sad about having all the kids out of the house. I was looking for something the other day in the basement and was in the music/TV room. I started thinking about all the movies my son and I used to watch down in our “Retro Lounge”. It was a spot where we had the old 32″ tube TV hooked up to the old VCR, as well as having the old Playstation hooked up where we’d play the Namco Museum game collection. We’d watch old movies on VHS and have our drinks and snacks. It’s also where music was played and noise was made. My son and his buddies down there jamming, listening through the furnace vents as they made lots and lots of noise.

I think about all the TV shows and movies we watched together. All the games, action figures, Lego sets, and Beyblade battles in the living room. This moment always seemed so far away, but now it’s just around the corner.

My wife is excited to get a room upstairs to make her office/workspace. And I’m coming around to the idea of creating a writing room for me as well. Maybe even have an amp in that room for after work guitar noodling. I know we’ll get used to the whole empty nesters thing, but it doesn’t come without a little sadness.

We’d talked about getting a dog when the move was complete, but a couple weeks ago we’d decided that we kind of wanted to enjoy the lack of responsibility that comes with no dog to take care of. But now, heading into this new reality I’m not so sure I want to wait anymore. We’ll see, I guess.

For now, I’m just going to look forward to a nice meal after work with my wife and parents. We’ll see where we go from there.