Ah, me, summer is coming to an end and it makes me sad. This was the hottest one in the State of Maine’s history, but hot in Maine is not like hot in the southern states. The temperature gets up in the low nineties and that’s it. So summer is coming to an end and the cold winds will start to blow again, but that’s not why I grieve.     My summer starts about mid-May, give or take a week. It starts when I can sit outside on the porch in the evening. My porch is up in the trees. It’s just like the tree house that you dream of as a kid. The squirrels are racing around looking for the first acorns and the robins are tending to their nests and this old man sits there watching, listening and doing his favorite thing; sipping Anejo rum or brandy and smoking a decent cigar. It’s after dinner, the wife is reading in the bedroom and I’m outside reminiscing about younger days. The light has gone from the western sky and the only light is from a small lamp that hangs next to the screen door. And so my summer starts. It won’t end ‘til mid-October, if I’m lucky, but I see the sunsets earlier, the acorns are falling from the trees of their own accord. There are so many nuts that the squirrels can’t keep up. Summer is passing too quickly, but all is not lost, at eighty I still have next summer to look forward to.