The Fourth of July signals for many the mid-point of summertime. Summer for me was the time outdoors, with the long evenings of light and early morning sunrises blasting through the windows. A distant image from six months earlier in January when most of the days were in darkness. Adulthood has taken us to tasks indoors and we now view the outdoors through a window, like some movie in a theater. Perhaps at this mid-point in summer we need to remind ourselves of the beauty of the season, and of the life that in our childhood we lived outdoors. Airconditioning is a blessing, but it has diminished that venerable custom of sitting in the screened in porch and entertaining the neighbors. The whine of the cicadids, the bell of the ice cream truck, and the slow diminishment of light on a July night may not pass the standards of high technology, but for me such an evening far exceeds anything I’ve seen on a cell phone.