Jul 2, 2015 3 min read

I can’t remember a summer with so much churning. By churning, I mean change. There must be something in the air – besides the rain.

Let’s start with the sharks. Not since the summer of 1975 have I looked upon the seas with so much suspicion. That’s when “Jaws” came out and we all joked about not taking baths any more – much less swimming in the ocean. We all had a good chuckle at that. Sharks don’t really attack swimmers, and besides, the shark in the movie was made of plastic.

Turns out there really are sharks out there and, as we’ve been reminded this summer, they do bite people. News reports keep reassuring us we’re more likely to be struck by lightning, but when you hear enough about shark attacks on North Carolina’s Outer Banks (at places I’ve visited so many times I can picture them), you consider the odds and decide not only to stay out of the ocean but also not to run out to the mailbox during a storm.

It’s also the summer of social and political churning: the Supreme Court opened the wedding chapels to same-sex couples; Caitlyn Jenner is out and about in bedazzled mini skirts; Donald Trump shoots off his mouth – and his foot, again – with idiotic comments about immigrants. Church fires, hate crimes, Greece is going belly up. I don’t often miss working as a TV reporter, but these days I do because there’s so much to report.

There are enough remarkable things happening to make “the Summer of Fifteen” a cultural reference point, and I’m sure we’ll still be talking about it years from now. The summer is swirling by in such a frenzy, I can’t keep track of it all.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much news coverage. Our 1.2 million rainy days in a row have kept me inside with the TV on. When the sun finally returns – and things still aren’t looking all that great for the Fourth of July weekend – I’ll be outside on my bike or in the garden and not caring so much about the news.

And about that garden: Mine is a rainforest. I’m going to learn to cook squash blossoms because the zucchini plants erupted with them overnight. With luck, the tomatoes will be close behind. It frightens me to think of all the zucchini I’ll have to either use up or fob off on neighbors come August.

But not as much as it frightens me to think about sharks. We’re headed to the beach, and I’m not sure what to do about the ocean. Are the kids OK standing in the surf? Will anybody go into the water?

What a weird summer it’s been – tragic in some ways, joyous in others – and overall just remarkable.

That court decision about gay marriage painted our whole world in rainbow colors. Maybe that’s what all this rain has been for.

So here’s to what the rain has brought: rainbow weddings for everyone, bodacious gardens and chocolate-zucchini cake. Put some candles on that cake for tomorrow. We have a birthday to celebrate.

Happy Birthday, USA. Happy Birthday, us. Can you believe the summer we’ve had?

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.