August 29th, 2026

       “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” — William Shakespeare
   Billy Shakes sure as hell understood this one.
      Here we are on the last Saturday of August, and another summer is getting ready to get packed away and added to the history book.
           That got me thinking.
     There are only 24 summers between this one and the summer of 2050.
 Put it that way and 2050 doesn't sound as far away as it did five minutes ago.
   We tend to think of summers as an unlimited commodity. Another one will come around next year and bring another baseball season and another Fourth of July.
      But Shakespeare had it right. Summer's lease is short.
 That is why these final August weekends feel different. The sun sets a little earlier. The shadows get a little longer. Football starts creeping into the conversation. School is back in session, and Labor Day is sitting on the doorstep.
    Summer doesn't slam the screen door when it leaves, it quietly slips away.
   So do not spend this last Saturday of August worrying about September.
Sit outside, grill something and listen to the ballgame.
   Take the long way home this afternoon. Have dinner with somebody that you love and watch the sunset together.
   Because someday we will reach the summer of 2050 and we will probably wonder how in the hell those 24 summers went by so fast.
     Do not count the summers you have left, make the summers you have count.