Summer landed without much preparation. One week I was digging out a pair of sweat pants and the next I was wondering where my shorts went. Such is life, the way it should be, here in the state of Maine.

I’m thinking of designing a bumper sticker to answer that frequent comment from visitors: Aren’t you lucky to live in Maine? My bumper sticker would read, “Vacationland? Only for visitors.”

Summer is a good time for reading, and so far, I’ve re-read the “Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, etc.” It’s a wonderful book, and for those of you who emote over lobsters, you’d love it as it explains all the politics involved and the scientific facts about those critters. My conclusion is that you don’t have a thing to worry about. Lobsters are smarter than the rest of us and know where and when to hide.

Another book, which I’ve perused for the second or third time, is Charles Clark’s “Eastern Frontier,” another history book, about just how northern New England was created. A large part of this is devoted to New Marblehead (which is what Windham used to be called).

So, yes, another Maine summer. Since I’m a native, several generations over, a Maine summer doesn’t prompt the romantic, almost fictional, images of lighthouses and serene beaches. I think black flies, ticks, lightning bugs, and electrical storms causing fires, green everywhere, rainbows, people racing around, sunburned babies, dogs panting out the car windows, and crowds at every store. Those are my images.

Summer is a hectic time for folks making the majority of their year’s business in a few months, like our local laundry. I stopped in at Busy Bee the other day with a little load of laundry and had forgotten it was summer camp season. Every washer churned, every dryer whirled and several summer helpers were unloading, folding and marking dozens of bags of laundry. And it’s this way day and night, during camp season.

Summer camp in Maine is really an institution. Often, folks who went to summer camp in Maine eventually retire here and the strange thing is, some assume that those of us who live here year-round went to the same camps! Those summer camps are often owned and operated by people who live somewhere else. Most Mainers I grew up with could never afford to go to summer camp. And besides, who would get in the hay, pick the vegetables, mow the lawns? Maine is a whole lot more than summer camp.

Too soon it will be over and this would probably be a good time to find the snow shovels and hang them up.

See you next week.