Ah, the month of June is here and going strong. This is the month of the Summer Solstice or, as we can say, the longest day of the year. This is, of course, here in the Northern hemisphere. Even though we are way down South there is even further South. In fact below the equator is half the earth. In those places it is the shortest day. This of course is probably where the expression “that’s the long and the short of it” got its start.

June is known for other things as well. Everyone has heard a lot about the June bride. Some of us know there is a father’s day in June. Some have birthdays in June. However the big one is graduation. Most school type graduations are in June. Probably the big one is from High School. It is not necessarily always true but nowadays a lot of college graduations are when the student loans become due.

Graduation from High School is for many of us the beginning of either our career or our moving into the academic or other training for our career. There used to be a saying that went around, it went something like this: “Summers here, no more tests, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks!”

It was not exactly correct. There is at least one more test. That would be the rest of your life. For those who have lived a while past graduation we know that life is full of tests. Some are easy and some are hard, but we can conquer them if we just keep on moving ahead. We can fail some of them if we give up. If you attend a graduation this year the speaker will probably give you some of the details.

It is also not true that we will be rid of those dirty looks that we thought the teachers gave us. As we trudge along the path of living our life, it is more than likely that we will not only encounter more dirty looks from time to time but on occasion we will pass out a few of them ourselves. In every case they will most likely have about the same effect those the teacher supposedly gave us did. We will live through them.

No more books is also a bit misleading. We undoubtedly will encounter books. Hopefully, many of them will be books to read for pleasure rather than for an assignment. But there is one book we will not be able to avoid, or its substitute. That is the checkbook.

As children we, hopefully, were able to avoid, the trials of complete responsibility. As we move to adulthood that is relatively unavoidable. We would hope that your “book” would remain full for your needs. It might sometimes be bare and that’s not fun. However , the good news is that you can make it through. That is because you passed the requirements before and can do it again.