View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: What do you like best about Saskatchewan summers.
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It would be easier to ask me what I like least about Saskatchewan summers because I love everything about them.
I love the way if you turn on the spot 360 degrees you can see several different days unfolding before you.
I love the smell of heat and dust on a lonely country road or the smell of creosote on train tracks diminishing in the distance as far as the eye can see.
I love the way a wheat field flows in the wind like an ocean and the yellow and blue patchworks of ripening rape and flax.
I love the blazing heat of a cloudless July morning and early afternoon and the way spectacular thunderstorms erupt in the late afternoon to knock down the heat and revive wilting plants.
I love the dragonflies and the grasshoppers, the singing of the birds and the howling of coyotes in the moonlight.
I love trips to the lake, the long lazy days, the unencumbered sunsets and sunrises, double and triple rainbows, stars that go on forever and a Roughriders game on blustery afternoon or evening.
I spent seven summers in Regina and area before my family moved east. By then, these things were all ingrained in my soul. I honestly can’t think of a place in the world I would rather spend my summers.
It’s home.
-Thom Barker
Not winter
The best thing about summer in Saskatchewan; well, simple answer, it’s not winter in Saskatchewan.
Compared to a Prairie winter summer is simply better, way, way, way better. But I suppose the idea is to be a bit more specific in what makes summer special.
I’ll be honest I prefer spring and fall in terms of weather. I’m not a lover of the heat, and July and August can have me melting to the point I want to do little more than curl up in front of a fan.
Now regular readers of Yorkton This Week will know I am a rather avid fisherman, but again spring and fall are better for that pursuit.
Apparently fish, like myself, prefer to lounge somewhere cool rather than swimming in pursuit of lures come July and August.
There is disc golf, another of my passions, but that is not so much a summer thing as it is an anytime the snow isn’t too deep. Last year we tossed discs on New Year’s Day and were out again in April.
There are fairs and other summer events, Shakespeare in the Park as an example to look forward to in summer, but would I call them favoured events — probably not.
Then there is the Canadian Football League, my favourite sport to watch. New seasons get into full swing with the arrival of July.
However, the run to the playoffs really starts Labour Day and the playoffs are not until the chill winds previewing another winter arrive, so summer football is not a favoured time of year.
Major League Baseball hits a draggy spot in the season in summer, the excitement of spring training and a new season already past, and the playoff run a September thing.
You know after some thought, looking out the window this July day and wondering about what makes summer special, and I still come back to it’s not 30-below, with a wind blowing, and snow to shovel, which still makes summer pretty darned good.
- Calvin Daniels
Batter up
My response to this week’s Cheap Seats question of “What do you like the most about Saskatchewan summers?” is probably one that anyone reading this expects from me by now, although I won’t tell you until I let you know about my runner up!
There are, of course, several great things about our summers (none of them including mosquitoes or wood ticks… unless it’s the death of both at the end of summer).
My second favourite thing about our summers is something that is so wonderful, yet so horrible all at the same time.
We have all recently experienced this, but I absolutely love a good prairie thunderstorm. The thunder, lightning and possibility of a tornado (horrible, yet beautiful) are all things that most certainly pique my interest. However that’s just a close second.
My most favourite thing about the Saskatchewan summer is, of course, Saskatchewan baseball. I adore baseball. It’s hands down my favourite sport (nothing even comes close, sorry, hockey).
The crunch of the shale/dirt under cleats, the smell of freshly cut field grass and the sound of a bat cracking a ball or a ball smacking the glove is something that is so therapeutic and relaxing to me that it may as well be an illegal drug.
Baseball has always been important to me, but baseball within Saskatchewan will always hold a special place in my heart.
-Randy Brenzen
