MAY LONG MEMORIES

            Oh no, here it is...deja vu all over again! Remember a few weeks ago when I rehashed a column from '08 and in it I said, "I for one, wouldn't be too disappointed with a few more weeks of ugly weather. I'm not hoping for it! But if it happens, it might ease my guilty, sports-addicted conscience." Well guess what? It's a complete replay of the events that happened after I wrote the original article, too.

            The weather has stayed nice and "indoorsy", except for maybe one or two days since I put that article in the paper, making it quite comfortable in front of my TV but doing absolutely nothing for the garden or the lawn!

            In that article I also said, "Now, as then, I am not accepting responsibility should the weather continue to be un-spring-like for the foreseeable future." I am sticking to that statement, too. It's not my fault!

            Come to think of it, with the Victoria Day long weekend coming up in a few days, I seem to recall just as many, if not more, crappy weather long weekends as nice ones. Perhaps it's just that shivering beside a campfire with snowflakes swirling down is more memorable on a May Long Weekend than a nice warm sunny one.

            I was combing through my May Long memories and I recall a group of us guys back in high school trying to camp out in the bush down south of town through a two-day down pour. We tried to make the best of it but we finally had to pack it in and surrender to the nasty weather. It wasn't among the greatest long weekends I've ever spent but forty years later I can recall every memorable, soaking wet moment.

            Ditto for a camping adventure my brother Gord and I endured with our sister Dot a couple of years before at Kenosee Lake. The day started okay, as many of them do, and by 8:00pm we were bailing water out of the tent and packing things up in the car. Talk about a downpour! Luckily a couple of the Krecsy boys were down at the Lake, too, and let us stay in their dry cabin for the night. Again, not a great time but very, very memorable.

            A generation later and it was the same thing for our three kids. They'd plan and plan and plan and pack and pack and pack and then...downpour! Can you see a pattern here? I don't even want to guess at how many washing machines were worn out washing all of those long weekend muddy, soaking wet camping clothes and bedding.

            Now, I do recall one Bike-a-Thon event from the early '70's when we school kids were trying to raise funds for a swimming pool and the route was from Kipling to Kenossee Lake and it was so blasted hot that the asphalt from the highway was sticking to the bike tires. They didn't even have the piers, the buoys or the big slide out in the water at the beach, yet, but a bunch of us ran down and dove right into the water to cool off anyway. Every other leap year, or something, the weather can be nice, I guess.

            I shouldn't even tell you this but Environment Canada is predicting a pretty decent weekend for this year's version of the Victoria Day Holiday Weekend. Not a heat wave, mind you, but 18C on Saturday and no rain predicted so far. Remember, though, that anything after two days is a crapshoot. I don't want to bring you down but maybe pack an umbrella and a rain slicker if you are planning any outdoor-type activity.

            As much as I've enjoyed watching indoor sports I am as sick and tired of the cold weather as anyone and I'm ready for some heat. Bring it on. It's time to stop watching sports-it's time to start playing sports.

"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent." Dave Barry-(1947-).