See you again

With the Labor Day weekend under our belt, this is a good time to take stock. It was a great summer, with a lot of fine days and enough rain to keep things green, and the lovely fall season and possibly Indian summer are yet to come. But didn’t the season seem to go too fast? And isn’t there something to be done to make next summer even better?

There is, indeed, and it involves those summer houseguests. We love them, and we are glad that they love Maine and want to come here in July and August – always in July and August. But they do add complications. They come here to play, while we still have work to do. They often help set the table, do the dishes and change the bedclothes. They are entertaining, and some are self-starters, going fishing or hiking or boating on their own. But mostly they are always around, always talking and constantly requiring entertainment. And cribbage and Scrabble and jigsaw puzzles can pall if you hit a stretch of rain and fog.

When one guest family finally took off after a visit of a week or so, the wife sked brightly, “And may we come back again next year?” The hostess, without missing a beat, replied, “No.” Abrupt, maybe, but from the heart.

A gentler solution might be to apply a three-day rule. Some would make it a one-night rule – arrive one afternoon and leave next morning. You can pack a lot into parts of two days. And if they love Maine so much that they want to stay longer, there may be a nearby bed-and-breakfast.

Christopher Buckley once wrote a similar anguished complaint after a summer of back-to-back houseguests at his vacation home in Blue Hill. He ended with an assertion that he liked his houseguests and considered them good people. “So if any of them should read this do understand that this is not about you. It is about the people who came the week after you did.”

Well said. Same here.