Between You and Me: ‘June is bustin’ out all over,’ according to Rodgers and Hammerstein
By Leah S. Dunaief
Suddenly it’s June. Didn’t we recently put our holiday decorations away? Wasn’t it mid-winter break just a couple of weeks ago? Time warps, especially if we have busy lives. We look up and five months of the year have already passed.
But of course, June is most welcome. It is the month of high school graduations, of weddings, of the official turning to summer with the summertime solstice and the most daylight hours of the year. For those readers interested in random data, June is the second of four months to have a length of 30 days and the third of five months to have fewer than 31 days. Take that to “Jeopardy!”
June is also the month when all the trees are dressed in their finest, lushest leaves, when the weather beckons us outdoors because it is neither too cold or too hot quite yet. June is when the swimming pools in the neighborhood shed their covers and offer to the eye patches of refreshing blue as we drive along the local roads. June is when allergy season begins to recede with the gradual lessening of tree and grass pollens.
Early June is when I like to travel because each day is longer, and I feel I am really getting my money’s worth on a tour. That’s also when most families are still home, their young ones not yet finished with school, and therefore all services, from palaces to restaurants are less crowded. Unless I am in the southern hemisphere, where it is technically the start of winter, the weather in June tends to be perfect, not much rain, the temperature ideal.
June was probably named after the Roman goddess Juno, the goddess of marriage and the wife of the supreme deity, Jupiter, There are also other suggestions for how the month got its name, but we really don’t have to list them all because no one I know is actually preparing to appear on “Jeopardy!”
That said, you still might like to know a few of the month-long observances for June. There is:
African American Music Appreciation Month
ALS Awareness Month in Canada
Caribbean American Heritage Month
LGBTQ+ Awareness and Pride Month
National Oceans Month
PTSD Awareness Month
Great Outdoors Month
And my personal favorite, National Smile Month, which is celebrated in the United Kingdom and should migrate across the globe.
There is also:
International Children’s Day on the first Tuesday
World Bicycle Day on the first Wednesday
National Donut Day on the first Friday
Father’s Day on the third Sunday
Here is one to ponder: Seersucker Day on the second Thursday
And on the third Friday, National Flip Flop Day.
Hmmm. Maybe with all that said, we should give a second thought to “Jeopardy!”
When our children were in elementary school, I always welcomed June with enthusiasm. It meant that July and the end of the academic year were not far away, which in turn meant sleeping in and not having to prepare for the early bus to school, long, lazy days at the beach, family baseball games on the empty school fields on weekends and frequent outdoor barbecues. This year, June means, among more hedonistic pursuits, a month with five Thursdays, and therefore five issues of the papers and website to fill with local news that we will report to you.
Happy reading!
