Here it is, the second day of the fifth month of the year, more commonly called May. It's when both horses and horsepower gear up to go as fast as they can, in order to win the biggest race of them all.
It's when tornadoes whip through the air, causing chaos and disaster to those whose properties and/or lives they ran over.
It's when plants start growing in earnest, and the first crop of hay is baled.
It's where all over the country, millions of kids are out on the Little League diamonds, convinced that this sport is fun and that they'll play in the big leagues one day. It's where businesses along Main Street sponsor the teams full of gap-toothed second-graders. It's where grown-ups volunteer to coach those kids the fundamentals of baseball and softball, it's where that loudmouth dad that everybody hates being around yells insults at everyone because Tim isn't hitting well enough, or because that #@$!% umpire blew that call, calling Pam out when she was really safe on that slide by two feet. It's where the local paper runs it's Little League special issue, with forty-six bad team pictures in it's own section, which signals to the kid writing the sports news that it's time for his annual summer vacation.
It's where treks to see friends in another state are made, spending a weekend with friends you enjoy before having to think about the different ways and paths that each of you will take soon.
It's where you spend Saturdays traveling all through the county, looking for great deals at garage sales, with that next sale over on Washington Street being even better than this one. Or it's where you spend all week helping your wheelchair-bound mother-in-law get ready for hosting a garage sale that you don't really think anyone will go to, just because it's the right thing to do.
It's where high school seniors finally realize that the world they knew is about to be left behind forever, and they either look towards their graduations with joyful expectancy or anxious, wistful foreboding. It's where a select group of high school juniors excitedly get ready for a trip of a lifetime.
It's where middle schoolers count the weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds until they leave for camp.
It's when allergies make everyone's lives miserable, with a slight breeze, partly-cloudy sky and seventy-five degrees and the windows staying shut.
It's when one of the dogs has puppies for the first time, and having to guide her on how to be a mother. And it's gazing happily at the furry little canines and thinking up names for them.
It's when the summer movie season kicks off, filling theaters with gunfights, explosions, car chases, superheroes, sequels, and the newest Pixar project.
It's where American Idol crowns it's most recent winner, and having to let the discussion group with the cousins languish until Thanksgiving, where the steam gathers up for the next season.
It's a time of birthdays, seen as interesting and exciting things when at five, where you don't totally understand the concept yet, or as a natural right to request things like a .22, tank, car, cell phone or helicopter and fully think you'll get them at eleven, or as a low-key thing that's mostly just another day at nineteen.
It's where little boys go fishing with their grandmas, having the time of their lives whenever they could spend the weekend on the farm.
It's all these things, and many, many more. May is a good month.
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