Summer

Navy Week will be celebrated this summer in Baltimore. The coordinated program will be held Aug. 28 through Sept. 6. Plans call for a large naval vessel to anchor in the Inner Harbor. According to a statement released by the Navy, the series of events will show "Americans the investment they have made" in this branch of the armed forces. Events include appearances by the Navy Leap Frogs parachute team, performances by ceremonial and rock bands, flight simulators and interactive displays, demonstrations by Navy divers and sailor visits from ships and submarines.

Forty years ago this summer, I was physically as buff and fit as I would ever be. A relatively well-muscled 165 pounds, I spent my days 30 to 50 feet closer to the sun, a confident Icarus with hammer in hand and a couple of galvanized roofing nails hanging like unlit cigarettes from my 18-year-old lips. Nailing asphalt shingles onto the roofs of sturdy pre-Depression, eastern Iowa barns was one of the few ways a young man could make a good income. It was my final summer before diving into the abyss we like to call higher education.

Personal income in Maryland was 0.3 percent higher in the summer than the spring, the same increase felt nationwide, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated Thursday. That was significantly smaller than the state's 1.2 percent increase in the spring, but better than the 2.8 percent drop felt in the winter. Personal income includes wages, benefits, government payments such as unemployment checks and other income, including rents and dividends. Marylanders' wages and benefits by themselves rose 0.5 percent in the summer, the agency said.

School is almost out and I don't know who will be more relieved - the kids or me. Now that my children are older, I don't have to worry about finding summer babysitters or day camps, but I still want to strike the right balance between relaxation and boredom. I used to believe that kids needed to stay busy to stay out of trouble. But I've come to appreciate the need for a little boredom to stir the imagination. I've taken away the video games until school is out in hopes of getting them to concentrate on their lessons.

The last Saturday in June was the day we said goodbye to Baltimore and packed it up for the summer. As a child, it was a day I anticipated all year, then remembered for its unforgettable set of rituals. By the end of June the pace of our domestic life was slowing. The heat had set in, and, as a neighbor once observed, there was never an electric fan in our home. Baltimore was just different in the summer. The downtown department stores closed at noon on Saturdays. As you walked the streets you heard Orioles games on radios through all the open windows.

The morning sun is just beginning to warm the sand along the boardwalk, which, save for a few power-walkers and seniors riding bicycles, is quiet enough to hear the surf and the day's first popcorn starting to jump and crackle at Fisher's. Near the inlet, a tractor-trailer backs up behind Trimper's amusement park and shirtless young men start tossing out and piling up the giant plush bears and gorillas — prizes for those who can meet a midway challenge. Games manager George Richie, who has worked the boardwalk long enough to know the signs that point to a successful summer, thinks he's going to need more bears.

It's summer time in Carroll County; for Valerie Virchow, that means only one thing - Carroll County Farm Museum's living history camps. For the last 10 years, Virchow has served as a group leader for the camps at the Westminster museum, escorting campers to various activities, from candle-dipping to fishing, toy making to tin punching. "Hot weather and I are not friends. By the middle of the third week, I'm saying, 'Why am I doing this?' " Virchow said. "By October, I'm looking forward to the next camp.

Occasionally, I'll indulge my imagination and envision ducking into the Hotel Rennert's once-famous raw bar. I never saw the hotel; it was torn down in the early 1940s, years before my birth. My father, Joe Kelly, happily recalls the hotel's bar and savored its oyster dishes. He is also the only person I've ever met who knew the Rennert's summer cousin. This story unfolded this past Saturday morning when I joined a caravan of St. Ignatius Church parishioners for a picnic at Blue Ridge Summit at Cascade just northwest of Emmitsburg, where the Jesuits own a tract of land.

School never closed this summer for about 30 Baltimore City middle-school students. They arrive at Franklin Square Elementary/Middle School with enthusiasm for a day that may be shorter and more laid-back, but still enhances their academic and athletic skills. These kids are reading books of their own choosing, writing in their personal journals, zipping through math calculations and working out on the basketball court. They spend two hours a day in an air-conditioned classroom and two in the gym — cooled only with fans — at the school on West Lexington Street, a few miles from downtown.

A friend gave me some honest advice: Summer starts to go by more quickly after the Fourth of July celebration. I've learned this to be true, and now I've got to get moving on a lot of stuff I plan to accomplish before Labor Day — or maybe Oct. 1. Or perhaps Thanksgiving. My plans are fluid, and if I don't achieve them all, at least I've set down a list. I've never been to Chincoteague, Va., or Assateague Island, despite spending weeks each summer in nearby Delaware. I've never been south of Salisbury, and I want to make it to Princess Anne and Pocomoke City, as well as the Eastern Shore towns of Virginia.