A summer night in 2019

Late summer is such a drowsy time. The season is cresting and heading downhill to autumn.

The back-to-school ads and commercials have started, but it's hard to take them seriously. All of August lies before us, a last blast of (hopefully) sun and lazy days of kids playing hoops in the street or zooming along the sidewalks on scooters. The fireflies stuck around 'til early July, kind of a rarity these years.

In my neck of Pittsburgh, the last day of July 2019 is hot, with towering clouds and a sky that looks ready to unload, yet again, cosmic buckets of rain. But so far, no showers. The bizarre weather manifests in a rainbow over thunder gray skies as I head home from meeting a friend on the North Shore.

(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

Home is drowsy, too. Filled with the murmuring hum of fridge and dehumidifier, the quiet tick-tock of a battery-powered clock. And, even though the windows are closed, I can still hear the steady burr of legions of crickets.

The dining room has a good view of the back yard and while I'm watching in the early evening, a hummingbird stops twice to fill up from the feeder.

I really love summer.

The photo is from June 21, the  summer solstice, at Randyland in Pittsburgh. A happy place.

Coda to summer, Dormont Pool

This photo is from 2017, the Dormont Pool, Pittsburgh, PA

Didn't make it to the pool on Labor Day 2018, even though it's one of my favorite places in the world. Have been swimming there since the early 1980s when we bought our first house, in Dormont. Interesting to see how it has changed over the years. For example, now it seems lifeguards are hired outside; I don't know, but they are very professional, not high school kids sitting on tall chairs. They stand, with rescue equipment.

Dormont Pool, Sept. 2017

The diving boards are long gone, but there's a fun slide and a kind of giant mushroom thing in the kids' end that has a water spray coming out of it. There are two old, heavy turnstyles when you go in, with a check-in counter in the middle of them. $7 if you are not a resident (as I am these days). Behind that is the lifeguard’s room. Usually you can hear them chatting.

For a long time, there was a woman who swam there, older than me, who had the oddest crawl stroke. Her right arm was always fully extended, but her left never made it above water. In the winter, I would see her doing laps about the time that I did, early morning, at the South Hills JCC. Haven’t seen her in years; she seemed so dedicated. I found out at the JCC that her name was Sue, but never met her personally.

Despite the updates over the years, the women’s locker room still has that cavernous, chlorine-y, concrete-y kind of feeling. The ceiling is low. There are a few changing booths, a couple of bathroom stalls, a couple of shower stalls, a bunch of 25 cent lockers and two benches. Two sinks with raggedy mirrors. Fluorescent lighting that is not great. Almost always when I'm there are moms with kids, trying to figure out getting dressed or un. And then you walk out to the pool, through of this kind of cool, short tunnel to the main patio, with the gorgeous blue expanse of the water waiting for you.

The beach, green grass and clover, is long but not deep. There is also a second beach, which is the sloped descent into the pool, all parallel to Banksville Road (fortunately there are hedges). Lots of pool goers just park themselves on the second beach and enjoy being cool with toes and legs in the bright water. I like it for doing leg kicks after my laps are done.

One other change over the years, lots of people with tattoos. Lots.

I’m glad Dormont has been able to keep this going. Given how wet the summer of 2018 was, I’m sure the borough lost money on it.

The mural in the women's locker room at Dormont Pool was added within the past 10 years. http://friendsofdormontpool.org/

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Cool toes

Lunch time walks these days, since the company has crossed the Allegheny and planted itself on the North Shore, mean lots of proximity to water. The path along the river is truly nice and very walkable. You could be strolling along the waterfront for hours, if you weren't paying attention.

You can boat, too. I haven't been kayaking yet but hope to before September ends. Venture Outdoors has a livery right below the Roberto Clemente bridg. Lots of boats for cheap.

What I have been enjoying is/are the water steps outside PNC Park. There are very specific warning signs (Slippery! Danger!) but they are universally disregarded in the summer months. Kids, teens, tweens, grownups, passersby with their dogs, everyone wades in and splashes about. But now that the days are waning, not too many people. Only water.


I wander over and slip off my shoes and cool my feet under the slanting September sun.

Around the block

Late Monday night, after a late dinner.

I can't go to bed on a full stomach and it's a perfectly cool and lovely night for a walk. Around the block I go.

Starting with a pink hoodie around my shoulders, ending with the hoodie wrapped around my waist in the perfectly lovely, cool summer night.

Cicadas and crickets chirping and thrumming and an ethereal crescent moon, Mars red, sliding down out of my view behind trees, teasing me with its sublime shape and color, in the northwestern sky. I am so distracted by the mystery of it that the night's constellations elude my gaze entirely.

Around the block. There is a home that recently sold that has a stunning elm tree in the front yard; it's dripline must be at least 100 feet in diameter. To even be in this tree's vicinity, in full summer leaf, is to feel as if you are under the roof of a church. The real estate sign is gone, windows open to show bare rooms and as I walk past, I hope to myself that the new owners will keep the tree, not cut it down.

Home again and the dogs and I go out. 10 p.m. Time for bed. The best part of late summer is being sung to sleep by the insects, cooled by the fresh air, sheltered by the night's stars.

In fact, I think night time is the best part of late summer days.