Summer Dreaming

For dinner we enjoyed lightly floured, pan fried ocean perch. Ocean perch is larger than its fresh water cousin with which we are more familiar. Eating perch of any kind always brings back wonderful memories of family gatherings in Port Dover, Ontario at the Erie Beach Hotel - famous for its flash fried Lake Erie perch. These tender, flakey whitefish filets go perfectly with beer and Canadian cousins in the summer.

The cool breeze we’ve invited in through slightly raised windows feels more like May than end of March. What’s missing is the distant hum of traffic on this almost eerily quiet Sunday evening. It’s small town quiet out there. Like my childhood backyard, only not as pitch dark. Life is simpler now, too, of necessity. Slowing it all down has been comforting in the face of real worry. Worry about my older relatives, worry about my older friends and colleagues, worry for all the good people out there who are having a much tougher time than I am.

The promise of summer, and a July 4th like no other, keeps me going. The neighborhood picnic and parade, followed by the annual pig roast... baseball games at Nationals Park... maybe even a road trip back to Ontario for some of that Lake Erie perch with my cousins.