Summer Solitude is Sweet

From the Editor’s Desk by Carol Cormaci

I’ve been fairly quiet in this corner for the past few weeks, but I’m still around. No vacations yet for my family this summer, although we do plan to make a long weekend getaway to the Monterey peninsula later this month to drool over the exotic cars on display at the Concorso Italiano and rub elbows with the well heeled at Pebble Beach’s Concours d’Elegance.

Maybe we’ll run into some of you there, since we’re sure not seeing many people around town right now. With summer school but a wilted memory at this point and civic organizations enjoying their “dark” month, a fair share of our population has packed up and headed out for a change of scenery.

That may be disappointing for local shopkeepers, but for those of us left to tough out the dog days of summer (a shameless plug for today’s special “B” section), it means there are easy pickings for parking spaces, even at Hill Street Café.

And the aisles at the grocery store are wide open; almost no waiting for someone to step away from the freezer compartment so you can snatch up your favorite ice cream, and there’s less chance that your neighbor who chooses her groceries based on their nutritional value will see what’s in your cart.

Of course the lack of activity around here every summer makes it tough for reporters. The biggest buzz we had this week was a non-injury accident on the 210 during rush hour Tuesday evening that jammed up not only that freeway but the 2, Foothill Boulevard and other local surface streets. When we called to find out what was going on, one law enforcement officer joked there must be a serious lack of news if we were interested in that mishap.

We must admit the pain of having to scratch around for our news every summer is easily offset by the fact we can put in (slightly) shorter workdays and attend fewer civic functions than we do between September and the middle of June.

So here’s to living in a quiet city. Let’s enjoy it while we can, since there are only about two dozen days left before school starts again and the jig is up on the slow, sweet life of summer.