Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

by George Goldtrap

Remember the Nat King Cole 1963 hit… Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer? Like so many of the great hits of that era, it’s hard to get it out of my head. It’s there, right now, as I write.
I think what propels the song, even today is the fact that those lazy hazy crazy days of summer keep coming back—year after year, and here we are right smack in the middle of the summer season.
Of course some might argue that in Florida, summer last all year, and indeed it almost does—which by the way is why Peg and I are here. Oh, we like seasons too, but when winter is warm —we like it even more.

When I hear this ‘global warming’ stuff I cannot help but think of Chicken Little of ‘the sky is falling’ fame. I dare not get into the science of either argument, warming, cooling, or neither, but suffice it to say it is fairly easy to find proof to support either or neither side. Frankly, I don’t lose any sleep over any of it. (Some would say I don’t lose sleep over anything—and they’d be correct).
All this back and forth of unprovable bla bla reminds me of the ‘UFO believers, or the ends of the earthers, (wrong about a gazillion times), or the Bigfoot searchers. In the words of our illustrious former cabinet secretary…’ What difference does it make’?

Life is so full of the good and the certain why would anybody spend much time on the useless and uncertain? I confess I have done so but honestly, I‘m trying to quit!
I’ve often wondered which kills the most people…diseases we know we have or diseases we think we might have? Either can be deadly.

In the 50s I did hundreds of commercials for builders of bomb shelters. (I can hear my grands saying, ‘What are bomb shelters Papa?)

Most of those stuffy underground concrete boxes are probably now wine cellars and as such are serving a more noble cause.

Turn on the TV, day or night, and you can get an endless list of meds and devises designed to save your life… even if your life is not in danger. Pharmaceuticals beg you to ‘ask your doctor’ whether you might benefit from taking Dr Newboats Snake Oil…or from wearing the new Cures All liver harness.
All this is as amusing to me as the Oklahoma Faith Healer who actually opened a medical college and hospital and then had more floors and beds than he had patients.

Duh!

Maybe he should have consulted a Nigerian lottery director before raising all that money for a contradictory thesis… you think? It is true… a fool and his money are soon parted.
P. T. Barnum was good at the same game but at least he was honest about fooling you. He said right up front that his scams were humbugs and that people loved being humbugged. He just sold tickets to the humbugs… much like selling lottery tickets. Barnum’s successes attest to his wisdom.

So bring on the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer—for all to enjoy—after all Chicken Little, (or Chicken Gore as might be his current name), might be right and we might all be on a voyage to the bottom of the sea—you know —the one that’s going to flood Florida —or was that to have been last week?