The War on August

I was reminded how much I love this time of year last week while my family and I biked north from Hiawatha on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. Everything is so lush and overgrown. Tall corn and prairie flowers in full bloom. Summer is exhaling its last sultry sighs.

Now, tomato plants are invading my deck. In three months we'll be living on a leafless tundra. Uggh.

Sure, it's humid and buggy. I know there are no holidays, although it is the month of my birth. And yeah, so I turn 40 this year. I can take it.

It's one of my favorite months. But it's under attack.

David Plotz at Slate drops the big one:

August is the Mississippi of the calendar. It's beastly hot and muggy. It has a dismal history. Nothing good ever happens in it. And the United States would be better off without it.

August is when the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when Anne Frank was arrested, when the first income tax was collected, when Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe died. Wings and Jefferson Airplane were formed in August. The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour debuted in August. (No August, no Sonny and Cher!)

August is the time when thugs and dictators think they can get away with it. World War I started in August 1914. The Nazis and Soviets signed their nonaggression pact in August 1939. Iraq invaded Kuwait Aug. 2, 1990. August is a popular month for coups and violent crime. Why August? Perhaps the villains assume we'll be too distracted by vacations or humidity to notice.

Aww man. Then he hits home:

The people with August birthdays are a sorry bunch. Sure, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton* were born in August, but the other presidential Augustans are Herbert Hoover and Benjamin Harrison. Film is represented by Robert Redford and Robert De Niro-but also by John Holmes and Harry Reems. Third-raters populate August: George Hamilton, Danny Bonaduce, Rick Springfield, and Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford were born then. August gave us Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat. In art, August offers Leni Riefenstahl, Michael Jackson, and Danielle Steele. (To be sure, not everything that happens in August is so terrible. Raoul Wallenberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Herman Melville, and Mae West were born in August. Richard Nixon resigned in August. MTV launched in August. And Jerry Garcia died in August.)

Hey, take it easy on Hoover. Even in the UK, August is maligned. Too much sun, evidently. Try typing "hate August" into Google. Clearly I'm fighting a losing battle.

In August's defense, I'd submit the Iowa State Fair, it's a great state fair. Woodstock was in August. The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified on August 18. Martin Luther King Jr.'s  "I have Dream" speech was delivered on August 28.

Bolivia gained its independence in August. Way to go Bolivia. Hawaii became a state. And don't forget International Beer Day. It's every August 5th.

So I salute you, my 40th August. Here's hoping for 40 more.