"AN INVINCIBLE SUMMER" is what Albert Camus called it. Of course the French writer wasn't referring to the string of 90 degree days that we recently experienced. He was offering a thought on how one might save and savour some of that good-time energy and put it to good use during some of the hard, winter days that lie ahead.

There's a hammock suspended between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a span of time when picnics, vacations, family reunions and festivals entertain us, relax us and remind us of childhood summers that seemed to last forever. Now we ask, where did summer go?

It's still with me and will be for some time. Staring into a campfire the other night I saw many figures in the flames of my poor man's radio. I saw the low-definition, high-intensity pictures of my summer dancing before me: a potter and his wife waltzing while I sang at a farmers' market in Lake Placid; the overflowing audience at Fish House harmonizing and enjoying the acoustics of a one-room school house; singing in the rain with other brave souls at a festival in Schroon Lake; weaving a common thread of music in the heat of the Champlain Valley Festival; playing banjo in a fishing camp on Lake Bonaparte for an audience of three or for over 300 during a spectacular sunset at Inlet's Arrowhead Park; at Bluseed Studios or The Adirondack Museum, the faces of new friends hearing songs about my hometown; or at the Minerva Historical Society Museum in Olmstedville, seeing old friends, teachers and schoolmates who know and grew up with the people in the songs.

Like trees that store the sun's energy then release it in stove or fireplace, we carry memories of those summer moments that can warm our souls and carry us through the shortest of days and coldest of nights. Wishing you a bountiful harvest and comfort in Camus's words : " . . . in the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer."

Some Autumn Haiku

Gold, rust, yellow, brown
Roadside ferns burned by summer
Weeds alone are green

Waiting for a sign
Red squirrel readies for a leap
Bee hovers beside

Oak, beech, maple, birch
Wet leaves shine brighter than dry
Soon to be buried

Look into the fire
The mind's eye rich with pictures
Poor man's radio