Attribution: Rasheedhrasheed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kickass, the doorstop dog, assures the keeper that there is no way for him to replicate the joyous feelings he once knew when school days ended and the glorious summer laid out there like the yellow brick road.
If there is another individual transitional experience of such magnitude, it does not come to mind: one day there is the drudgery of regimented days of sitting and trying to listen, and then it is suddenly over and you are FREE! FREE! FREE!
It is not so clear cut as all of that, of course, but it seemed so at the time, and is also recalled that way so many years later.
Perhaps as a pitiful substitute, the keeper could try to convince himself that early June is when he no longer has to wonder where his light jacket is. But then, considering Wisconsin weather that does not make a lot of sense.
So there is this: school is out, summer is here and so are the keeper and Phyllis.
It is enough.
Photo by Bill Stokes