Summer means so many things to me…vacation time with my wife and son,  sweltering days at the pool, the smell of freshly cut grass, watching and listening to the Cardinals, chasing fireflies at night, wearing fewer clothes!  The list goes on and on.  One of the other things that really defines summer for me is seeing little kids with lemonade stands on the corners in our neighborhood.  I can never resist a glass of kid-ade!  If you have kids who are running a stand this summer, check out www.Inc.com.  It’s Inc. Magazine’s website and they’re looking for the nation’s best lemonade stands!  Your kids could become famous and maybe even win some cool prizes!  And let me know where your stands are…in 95 degree weather I’m always looking for an excuse to stop and have a glass!  Happy summer!

So…one of the ironies I find about lawn care in the summer is…you want your lawn to look great, right?  But you don’t necessarily want to spend your whole summer working on it.  Hot summer Saturdays…don’t make me care for my lawn…I want to be somewhere where the water is clear and cool and the drinks are just the same!  So why do we put all this fertilizer on our lawns in the spring?  It just makes the lawn grow faster and that means we have to tend to it more often.  Like on those Saturdays…  any ideas?

Okay…here we go!  I always know summer has officially arrived when we start doing our afternoon broadcasts from the world famous St. Louis Zoo!  We’ll be there tomorrow (6.12, from 2-7 pm).  Stop by and join the fun.  We have free ice cream, a free concert starting at 5p and there’s a good chance my co-hort and geeky traffic reporter,  Mary Ann Carson, will wear a goofey hat!    Oh…and I almost forgot…they have all kinds of cool animals there too!  Our Zoo is such a jewel in the cultural world of St. Louis.  If you don’t come out tomorrow to see us, make it a point to visit the Zoo sometime soon!

I am so proud…please allow me to be a little self-indulgent here…my  son recently was named his school’s ‘09 recipient of the Hugh O’Brian (HOBY) award for excellence in leadership!  Yes…Hugh O’Brian the actor who played Wyatt Earp in the 50’s and 60’s!  So, anyway…my wife and I took my son to Cape Girardeau for the leadership conference at Southeast Missouri State University (thanks all you Redhawks!!!) and after we dropped him off, we went down to the riverfront.  It was incredible!  Why is it that a town the size of Cape Girardeau can create a family-friendly, historically significant riverfront atmosphere and a city the size of St. Louis can’t?  Maybe I need to get together with my buddy Charlie Brennan down at KMOX and get some wheels rolling.  My wife and I were amazed at what they’ve done in the Cape along the riverfront…and we were a bit ashamed for the one gazillionth time that we haven’t done better here in America’s greatest river city.  Do you have any ideas?  If so…I’d love to hear them! 

At the end of the weekend we drove back to the Cape and picked my son up.  He reports that the HOBY conference experience was very rewarding.  He also told me to leave him alone for a week while he catches up on lost sleep!