August is the Marvin K. Mooney of months. Like when Dr. Seuss wrote: "Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!" August won't go.
August won't go by Zumble-zay. August seems here to stay. Stay. Stay!
It's not so bad with the Hope and Cave City watermelon festivals this weekend. Both decades-old celebrations are held the same days, Thursday through Saturday, with slices, sluices and seed-spitting. Hope, in southwest Arkansas, claims the state's biggest melons; and Cave City, to the northeast, swears to have the sweetest.
But then, the rind times are gone, and August gets down to the business of being hot. Hot. Hot!
Average high temperatures are in the 90s, sometimes spiking into triple digits pretty much everywhere in Arkansas in August. Aug. 3, 2011, blistered at 114 degrees in Little Rock, according to the National Weather Service. And last year's August, about now, was close to 100.
August is when nothing much moves that can stay put. But one thing goes ahead, anyway -- the calendar. The sweltering days of August lead to cooler times soon ahead.
For relief right now, just imagine: a crisp blue morning when the air feels the way that apple cider tastes. The frost is on the pumpkin, or at least the pumpkin is on the porch. The leaves are heaped up, ready to bag -- but not before a giant leap into the pile, like a belly dive into the million colors of fall.
It's all coming, and the proof is here already. In the grocery store: pumpkin spice cake mix and coffee creamer, foretelling Starbucks' annual proclamation of the pumpkin spice latte.
Last year's first appearance of the frothy hot drink was Sept. 8. This year's will come with a dollop of difference -- new pumpkin spice latte K-Cups for home brewing.
In the beer cooler: pumpkin ale already, and harvest ale -- even Christmas ale.
Christmas trees and arsenals of twinkle lights and wrapping paper don't really count
as harbingers. They hardly ever go away in stores that specialize in decorations. But Halloween is up already, too, and L.L. Bean's website already touts fuzzy slippers and thick socks.
Here is more coming to make August finally do like Marvin K. Mooney, and go. Go. Go!
MAKE IT BREEZY
ON YOURSELF
Car air-conditioning used to be the window rolled down, and it's still that way -- open air-conditioning -- for contestants in the National Championship Chuckwagon Races.
Activities such as concerts and trail rides start Aug. 27, and race days are Sept. 2, 3 and 4 at the Bar of Ranch, Clinton. The full schedule is available at chuckwagonraces.com.
MONTH PYTHON AND THE COLDISH WAIL
Some of Eric Idle's fellow Monty Python cast members gave the cold shoulder to Spamalot, Idle's Broadway musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The show is not what the Pythons all together would have written, cast mate Michael Palin told Time Out London. But then, nobody else but Idle wanted to fiddle with it, he said. It turned out to be such a hit, "we're just proud to be associated with it," Palin said, "rather pathetically."
Arkansas Repertory Theatre's production of Spamalot will be Aug. 31 through Oct. 2 in Little Rock. More information is available at therep.org.
SOME PUNKINS
Pumpkins are fall gourds except in Arkansas, where somebody is bound to roll out early.
For one, the 24th annual Pumpkin Hollow Pumpkin Patch opens Sept. 19 -- three days before the official start of fall. The pumpkin farm is near Piggott, northeast of Jonesboro. Details on such pumpkin-patched activities as hay rides and corn mazes are available at pumpkinhollow.com.
Wherever, whenever the first pumpkin of the season turns up, the state will be ponderous with pumpkin patches all over by end of October, Halloween. The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism points to a bunch of others with details on dates and related activities at arkansas.com.
FROSTY RECEPTION
"When the Frost is on the Pumpkin" is a poem by James Whitcomb Riley. The whole piece goes on 32 lines about "the fodder's in the stock," and "the rooster's hallylooyer," and "the husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn."
But the frosty pumpkin is the part that endures from Riley's time, around 1900, in ways he couldn't have imagined: made-in-China decoration pumpkins sprinkled with plastic glitter.
The real thing is hard to predict, exactly when Jack Frost will ply his icy magic on a pumpkin in Piggott, Prescott, Pocahontas or possibly Pine Bluff. But the first frost will be Oct. 24 in Fayetteville, and Nov. 12 in Little Rock, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.
(See the "Old News" feature in the Democrat-Gazette's July 25 edition for an account of the "Hoosier Poet" Riley's popularity in Arkansas.)
SHIVER-SHIVER-BOO!
August is just a bump on the way to cooler days and creepier nights, and most of all goosebumps -- one prickle after another, brr:
• Rogers Historical Museum's "A House in Mourning" exhibit shows Victorian funeral and mourning customs, Oct. 1 to Nov. 6 at Hawkins House in Rogers. More information is available at rogershistorical museum.com. Brr.
• Ghost-hunters, Bigfoot-seekers and UFO-watchers descend on the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock for the Arkansas Paranormal Expo, Oct. 8 and 9. The event includes a ghost hunt in the museum, sometimes said to be haunted by eerie voices and footsteps. More information is available at arkansasparanormalexpo.com. Brrr!
FORECAST: COOL AND FAIR
The Arkansas State Fair will be Oct. 14-23 at the State Fairgrounds in Little Rock, with details at arkansasstatefair.com. What makes it cool? Bret Michaels, wine contests and goats.
Capra aegagrus hircus is the scientific name for a goat -- capra, that is, like in the astrological sign, Capricorn, symbol of the ram, Dec. 22-Jan. 19. Famous Capricorns include Elvis Presley, Stephen Hawking and Betty White -- and nobody is cooler than Betty White.
FLASH IN THE PAN
June is picnics, cucumbers and iced tea. July is hot dogs, ice cream and blueberries. August is too hot to care. What's for dinner? Nothing that has to be cooked, that's for sure.
But fall is Dutch ovens, chili cook-offs and the surest sign that the kitchen oven has been rediscovered: cornbread. The Arkansas Cornbread Festival will be Oct. 29 in Little Rock's SoMa district on South Main. Information is browning nicely at arkansascornbreadfestival.com.
BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE
Jon Bon Jovi's distraught song, "August 7," is about a murder; and Waylon Jennings' "33rd of August" promises "no salvation." But hold the band. August isn't much to sing about, but cooler and more comforting music is soon to come.
Neil Diamond's "September Morn" tells about dancing all night, and how "September morning still can make me feel that way." In the 1950s, songstress Julie London crooned, "I'm in the mood for this October," thanks to having found "an Indian summer man."
Leave it to Tom Waits to disparage "November" ("Get word to April/ to rescue me."). But grandmother in her famous cap knows what to do about about creaky cold of the year's 11th month, and everybody sings along -- to "Over the River and Through the Woods:"
"Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!"
MELON BALLS
The good news for now is that watermelon is just as good as when Mark Twain called it the "chief of this world's luxuries," and Arkansas' chin dribbles with a double serving:
• The Hope Watermelon Festival is Thursday through Saturday at Fair Park in Hope. More information is available at hopechamberofcommerce.com, or (870) 777-3640.
• The Cave City Watermelon Festival is Thursday through Saturday in and around City Park. More information is available at cavecitywatermelonfestival.com, or (870) 283-5301.
Um. Umm. Umm!
Style on 08/09/2016