Summertime Blues

That was the summer solstice, a couple of days ago. From now on, until late December, the evenings will grow shorter. This used to worry me more when I lived in Europe; gradually we would lose the delights of those long summer evenings. Here in the Sandlands the difference is almost laughable; on Wednesday the sun went down before 19:30 hours and in mid-winter it will be only an hour and a half earlier. So, NBFD.



Summertime Blues nevertheless. And the video above reminds me that 'twas ever so. I recall vividly watching Eddie Cochrane perform the song on American Bandstand when it was brand new in 1958. Back in day my adolescent blues were mainly motivated by an awareness that in those days you had to be built like a quarterback in order to make any kind of impression on the opposite sex. This, at the time, depressed me massively (unaware that I would more than make up for this in the sixties and seventies when us skinny guys were the babe-magnet flavour du jour).

I was also down about being so very much less well off than my fellow students in Dallas, Texas. I needed a job!

And I got one. The summertime blues evaporated in 'fifty eight when I got my first job in media; as usher,or ticket-taker, at the off-campus movie theatre which showed only European arthouse films.

Stay active in the media as a solution to the summertime blues! It's worked for me for almost fifty years! Leaving only the shortening of the evenings to bemoan when, each year, the solstice rolls around.