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August
As it turned August a few days ago, and I turned the page to a new month, and what a beautiful month, the awesome Duo Session of Pink Flamingo comes to mind. Such a delightful song, and superb version, Mona and Lisa made this all their own. I love the use of the Blues Harp by MLT over the flute in Manfred Mann’s original. Mona does such an awesome job on the Blues Harp, along with Lisa’s wonderful guitar work, and the singing and harmonies are outstanding! As with many MLT covers, they add their touch, and it’s on a new plateau for me.
Growing up, August was always a month of seeing summer coming to a close soon, and time to savour every moment left of summer. In Vancouver, the weather would change quite drastically from hot sunny warm days to wetter cooler days in September, usually by Labour Day. Those rainy first days of school just after the Labour Day long weekend, always stick in my mind. It was usually the month the Roe residence did the annual vacation, often a long road trip to somewhere really FINE! Fond memories.
What does August mean to you?
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16 Replies
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For me, both as a student and as a teacher, mid to late August has been back-to-school time. (Fall semester begins on the 15th this year!) So the first part of the month, both then and now, is when I take care of all the stuff that I soon just won’t have time for, whether it’s things I want to do or things I just have to do.
It’s always bothered me that there are no August holidays, at least on the U.S. calendar. Every other month has something, so why not August, when it’s prime time for outdoor activities and travel?
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Hi David, I remember my brother who lives in California and taught high school telling me his classes start in mid August, and the summer break starts earlier than in Canada in early June. I guess for me growing up in Canada, Labour day was always synonomous to the day before the start of school, and end of summer. It was like that in university and college too. August 1st is a holiday in most of the provinces in Canada which started not too long ago, for the same reasons you mentioned.
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Yes, Jung, it’s odd. I’ve lived in several regions of the U.S., and in all of them the school year has started in August. And yet the national media and advertisers always consider the day after Labor Day (during the first week of September) to be back-to-school time, so there must be some parts of the country where that’s the case. I hope folks, Americans in particular, will weigh in on that in this thread: when does school start where you live?
Glad to see that Canada had the sense to create an August holiday! I’d settle for just relocating one of the established minor ones that has no intrinsic connection to any particular time of the year. I’m tired of looking at those blank August calendar pages, containing no notice of anything to look forward to. And I’m certainly not going to go to the trouble of dreaming up my own motivations to make it through the month!
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The school behind our church (not a church school but a charter school) has the middle school students (6th-8th) start on August 15th while the lower grades start on the 17th. They need to build in extra days in case of snow days or cold days.
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Nice find Jung,
I never notice this one by the Twins.
I don’t remember it. I did not know Manfred Mann well.
In the D.C. area were off from June 20 until just after Labor Day.
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David, I just checked and Washington State back to school is after Labour Day too. It makes sense because as a kid I remember all the back to school sale commercials on TV from the US broadcasters from Seattle we get in Vancouver always aligned with our back to school time, so I always thought it was the same everywhere.
Michael, Tom, thanks for chiming in. It looks like it varies state to state. If I was a kid I would want to combine the different start of summer and return to school days across all the states so they are uniform everywhere, and do a hybrid, start summer earlier in early June, and return to school later, after Labour Day.
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Hi Jung,
I’ve been thinking for a while what I can think of specifically about August (and what it means to me). Surprisingly very little (that rarely happens to me 🙂 ). Except maybe that the weather is fine, oh yes and the following song:
PS: I better not bore you with the summer holidays in Germany. 16 federal states and 16 different dates that change every year. When can I drive where without getting stuck in a holiday traffic jam? Yes, our bureaucracy makes even August exciting.
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Hi Jurgen
Thanks for the nice song, and I hope you are having a great summer. For me August is like a place holder to remind me summer is closing soon, and I better not let the last few weeks of summer slip away without doing something special. It was the month I recall we always slipped in the big summer trips, so lots of fond travel memories associated with it.
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Jung, you always come up with some great topics!
As a teacher, August always is the time that I start gearing up for the upcoming school year. July is care free, but in August school is always on my mind. But as Mona and Lisa say at the end of “Dreams”…It’s okay.
We always have our first day (administration/teacher/staff meetings) on September 1. First day of classes is the day after Labor Day.
Labor Day is always the day I dread the most, but the Friday at the end of that week is nice…a return to normalcy. It is especially good if the Buffalo Bisons have a baseball game that Friday night. This year it falls perfectly.
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Hi Christopher, feels like summer is counting down as we near the end of August. Had a week of another small heat wave with temps in the mid 30s all week, but today it’s a cool and more refreshing 26C.
Hope you get to enjoy your Buffalo Bisons. I remember despite the blues of end of summer after Labour Day, soon the excitement of a new school year, new class mates made me forget all about the end of summer, and I looked forward to new beginnings and another year of life’s adventures to look forward to.
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Jung…once again your reflections are spot on!
Labor (or Labour) Day since I grew up three miles from the border. A new year, and as both a student or a teacher, the quiet dread of having to prove your meddle once again.
Friday after that first week, normalcy. Summer is now in the rear-view window. Hopefully I have a nice group of students and all is well. Hoping to have some students that I had before for other classes and maybe some high school baseball players from the season before.
And yes, I am enjoying the Buffalo Bisons. Since they are a Blue Jays minor league club and so is Vancouver, many of our Bisons have played for the Canadians. Talked to a couple of them and they have fond memories of the city and of Nat Bailey Stadium.
Keep up with the great work Vancouver!!!
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Hi Chris. Another fond memory of after Labour Day was the new school supplies. I remember my parents taking all the kids to the stationery store to get our new year school supplies. All those nice new pens, pencils, erasers, pencil sharpener, pencil case, scissors, binders, exercise books, geometry set, paste, multi-color felt pen case I insisted I wanted to expand my artistic prowess, and even a new new cool lunch box and thermos some years, not to mention new clothes and runners as I use to outgrow them each year. Always looked forward to showing up to school with my new school gear haul. Maybe some of my fascination for fountain pens and my stationery junky tendencies in my adulthood came from that. HAHAHA!
Yeah I’ve been to Nat Bailey Stadium a few times, a Canadian ball game, and track and field event over the years. Beautiful in the summer. Will have to keep an eye out for the next Bison/Canadians game. It would be nice to get a major league baseball team in Vancouver.
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Yes Jung, your taste in fine pens and in stationary certainly are evident. You have sent Mona and Lisa some real nice Mont Blanc items. Loved Lisa’s line about the perfume that you sent them for their birthday: “Now that we are twenty-eight, we can appreciate the finer things in life”. They were so excited!
Don’t know if you are aware of this but here goes…during my time as a student and a teacher, I noticed that there is an item that all Canadian students must have; namely, a cloth or nylon pencil pouch. As an Undergraduate, I had a Canadian classmate who had one full of little pencils to do his accounting, as a Graduate Student, all my Canadian classmates had pencil pouches, and during my student-teaching experience at Niagara-on-the-Lake, they all had them as well.
Once I started as an Adjunct at the University, once again, all my Canadian students had one. It stuck out to me because U.S. students usually stop using them in High School, which always ends up with them asking me “do you have a pencil?” which can get annoying, lol.
It didn’t matter if you were an A student or a D student, all Canadian students had pencil cases! If you were a rocker, you would write “Metallica” on it, if you liked prog-rock, “Rush” would be on your case, or it could be plain, have sports teams, unicorns, anything that matched your persona.
One of these years, I am going to recommend to my students to have one in their backpacks…maybe I won’t have to hand out as many pens and pencils!
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Hi Christopher.
Yeah I loved what Lisa said too, and both Mona and Lisa’s reaction to the gifts.
It’s interesting what you said about the pen pouch. I remember in Elementary school, the school mailed out to the parents the new years suggested school supplies, and “pen case” was always on top of the list. I can’t remember ever going to school, and even University without a pen pouch/case of some sort for all the pens, pencils, erasers, ruler etc…it just doesn’t feel right without something to carry all those writing implements in. Maybe it is a unique Canadian thing! HAHAHA. In my adulthood, I have acquired well over half a dozen nicer pen pouches, single, double, triple pen leather pouches for my fountain pens. I have one triple pen pouch that houses my 2 fountain pens and a ballpoint pen that I don’t leave home without! LOL. Thanks for sharing your observation, enjoyed learning about this Canadian peculiarity.
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As summer winds down, the message in this song rings strong, “let the sunshine in – open up your heart”. Such a nice 60’s feel good song and video!
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