Comparing Past Augusts
Going back to 1983 to compare previous Augusts a decade apart, with August having become my favorite month in recent years despite the fact that I keep turning another year older during the month...
August 1983 vs. August 1993 vs. August 2003
Winner: 2003--The summer of 2003 had been one giant blah affair for me for the first 75% of the summer....until I finally took the big three-day road trip I had been putting off for a couple of years that took me through the central counties of South Dakota and North Dakota and then across the northern tiers of counties in far northern Minnesota. I didn't even really know why I took the specific route I did but it led me to the perfect points of interest each state had to offer and will go down as one of my greatest road trips of all-time, so great that I did a redo in 2013 for the 10-year anniversary. I also had 100-degree heat on two of the three days of the trip, and I welcomed the heat. I took this trip on my first vacation while working at the newspaper and in the days following relaxed at the folks' place and went to the Minnesota State Fair to see a Suzy Bogguss concert. A weak summer came alive in the clutch, and was followed by an escalation with a girl I had begun to hit it off with earlier that year.
August 1984 vs. August 1994 vs. August 2004
Winner: 1994--The summer of 1994 was great in general, but this was the month when my dad finally got back into a steady work routine after having several summers off for a seasonal job he previously worked, meaning I got the place to myself day after day for the first extended period of my life. The summer of 1994 was the year I found my groove in a lot of ways and was still enjoying my first major revisit of 80s TV and it was also the origins of my CD collection, as I received a CD player for my birthday along with CDs for Faith Hill and Suzy Bogguss.
August 1985 vs. August 1995 vs. August 2005
Winner: 2005--In the last hurrah of my final "free summer" while I was in between jobs and loafing at the folks' place, I got to thoroughly enjoy a nightly routine at the Freeborn County Fair for the first time in years and also approached the 20th annual family visit to the Minnesota State Fair with baited anticipation and hype in a way I hadn't up until that year. Late in the month, the backdrop of the Hurricane Katrina devastation was tempered some by the premiere of the TV show that would become of my all-time favorites: "Prison Break" in its first season glory.
August 1986 vs. August 1996 vs. August 2006
Winner: 2006--Both August 1986 and 2006 were mixed-bag years (August 1996 was among the worst months of my life) but 2006 ended up having more pros and cons, my first "modern" August that included my fair and road trip routines all combined into one. I had moved to Des Moines early in 2006 and took my first vacation week for the Freeborn County Fair, and then sampled my first Iowa State Fair visit a week later, a visit that became a new tradition. I also had a great trip to the Minnesota State Fair, a road trip through eastern South Dakota, and was giddy about the upcoming midterm elections where the Democrats were poised to make big gains. So what was the downside of this "mixed bag" year? The girl I connected with most in my many unsuccessful years of courting the opposite sex disappeared forever on me late in the month.
August 1987 vs. August 1997 vs. August 2007
Winner: 1997--There were a lot of exciting developments in August 2007 but 1997 still exceeded it, enjoying my final month of the great summer working at the rural electric co-op with my neighbor buddy, and also finally getting the chance to watch the dozens of hours of 80s action shows I taped in late July from the FX cable network. To some extent, those hours were a little disappointing, but it was still a blast to revisit them and to go out in style from the summer that took me back to my desperately needed comfort zone after that horrific first year of college. Of course the bad news was the clock was ticking until I had to go back to college in September.
August 1988 vs. August 1998 vs. August 2008
Winner: 1998--I was overcome with attraction to "Andie", my blond postal co-worker in the later weeks of the summer of 1998 and we dated a couple of times before her premature return to school mid-month. It was very exciting to fall for a girl who liked me back, particularly when she was as hot as Miss Andie was. The postal job that was a pain in the butt back in the June had really grown on me by summer's end and I felt like a grew a lot that summer heading into my junior year of college the following month.
August 1989 vs. August 1999 vs. August 2009
Winner: 2009--Without question my all-time best first date was with "Brooke", a barely legal hottie who I connected with earlier in the summer and took to the Lost Island water park in Waterloo, Iowa, in August. It was one of the best days of my life and that alone made August 2009 the slam-dunk winner of this trio of contenders, but I also got to attend my last Minnesota Twins game at the Metrodome with some high school friends that month and balance all my fairs and road trips as well as score a second day at the Minnesota State Fair for the first time ever. Hard for me at this point to imagine another month in my future that will be as packed with good memories as August 2009.
August 1990 vs. August 2000 vs. August 2010
Winner: 1990--How cruel it is that the #1 and #2 months of my entire life are pitted up against each other. August 2000 was my first foray into online dating as well as online political debate, and both ventures yielded some friends I'm still close with today. But it's still light years behind August 1990, the month that molded my personality more than any other month before or after. I was 12 years old going into the month and 13 coming out of it, tagging along with my dad daily through the car lots of southwestern and south-central Minnesota doing vinyl repair work. I was at the brink of discovering my love for road-tripping before this venture but afterwards I was a lifetime hard case. Furthermore, puberty was now fully setting in and seeing all the cute girls walking the sidewalks near the car lots became more and more thrilling for me as the weeks went on, setting the foundation for the hot girls I was about to come in contact with daily at my new junior high school.
August 1991 vs. August 2001 vs. August 2011
Winner: 2001--It was a tough call between August 1991 and 2001, but the best of the summer of 1991 was behind my by this point in the summer while the summer of 2001 still had its best to come, enjoying all my fairs--which included a free concert by Ronnie Milsap at the Minnesota State Fair late in the month--as well as my late night visits to the Yahoo! Politics Chat debating the early months of the pre-9/11 Bush administration with a group of regulars whose company I came to enjoy. But the escalating daily banter with Dana, a girl I met online and who would become one of my most legendary love interests, was what made August 2001 the most exciting.
August 1992 vs. August 2002 vs. August 2012
Winner: 1992--Here's a battle of three stinkers if there ever was one but I guess 1992 was the best of the worst. My cousin came down from northern Minnesota for what would be his last visit during my boyhood years, even though the plans didn't work out entirely smoothly. Beyond that though, my excitement about recording old MacGyver episodes from cable were on hold that month because the cable network was airing a plethora of episodes I already had recorded, the Minnesota Twins' promising season collapsed amidst the August pennant hunt, and the Presidential campaign was largely stalled out except for the Republican Convention. It was a thoroughly average month but a tick better than August 2012 and miles better than the disastrous August 2002.
Unfortunately, my next installment will profile the month of September, although to be fair I've had a few exciting Septembers in years past.
August 1983 vs. August 1993 vs. August 2003
Winner: 2003--The summer of 2003 had been one giant blah affair for me for the first 75% of the summer....until I finally took the big three-day road trip I had been putting off for a couple of years that took me through the central counties of South Dakota and North Dakota and then across the northern tiers of counties in far northern Minnesota. I didn't even really know why I took the specific route I did but it led me to the perfect points of interest each state had to offer and will go down as one of my greatest road trips of all-time, so great that I did a redo in 2013 for the 10-year anniversary. I also had 100-degree heat on two of the three days of the trip, and I welcomed the heat. I took this trip on my first vacation while working at the newspaper and in the days following relaxed at the folks' place and went to the Minnesota State Fair to see a Suzy Bogguss concert. A weak summer came alive in the clutch, and was followed by an escalation with a girl I had begun to hit it off with earlier that year.
August 1984 vs. August 1994 vs. August 2004
Winner: 1994--The summer of 1994 was great in general, but this was the month when my dad finally got back into a steady work routine after having several summers off for a seasonal job he previously worked, meaning I got the place to myself day after day for the first extended period of my life. The summer of 1994 was the year I found my groove in a lot of ways and was still enjoying my first major revisit of 80s TV and it was also the origins of my CD collection, as I received a CD player for my birthday along with CDs for Faith Hill and Suzy Bogguss.
August 1985 vs. August 1995 vs. August 2005
Winner: 2005--In the last hurrah of my final "free summer" while I was in between jobs and loafing at the folks' place, I got to thoroughly enjoy a nightly routine at the Freeborn County Fair for the first time in years and also approached the 20th annual family visit to the Minnesota State Fair with baited anticipation and hype in a way I hadn't up until that year. Late in the month, the backdrop of the Hurricane Katrina devastation was tempered some by the premiere of the TV show that would become of my all-time favorites: "Prison Break" in its first season glory.
August 1986 vs. August 1996 vs. August 2006
Winner: 2006--Both August 1986 and 2006 were mixed-bag years (August 1996 was among the worst months of my life) but 2006 ended up having more pros and cons, my first "modern" August that included my fair and road trip routines all combined into one. I had moved to Des Moines early in 2006 and took my first vacation week for the Freeborn County Fair, and then sampled my first Iowa State Fair visit a week later, a visit that became a new tradition. I also had a great trip to the Minnesota State Fair, a road trip through eastern South Dakota, and was giddy about the upcoming midterm elections where the Democrats were poised to make big gains. So what was the downside of this "mixed bag" year? The girl I connected with most in my many unsuccessful years of courting the opposite sex disappeared forever on me late in the month.
August 1987 vs. August 1997 vs. August 2007
Winner: 1997--There were a lot of exciting developments in August 2007 but 1997 still exceeded it, enjoying my final month of the great summer working at the rural electric co-op with my neighbor buddy, and also finally getting the chance to watch the dozens of hours of 80s action shows I taped in late July from the FX cable network. To some extent, those hours were a little disappointing, but it was still a blast to revisit them and to go out in style from the summer that took me back to my desperately needed comfort zone after that horrific first year of college. Of course the bad news was the clock was ticking until I had to go back to college in September.
August 1988 vs. August 1998 vs. August 2008
Winner: 1998--I was overcome with attraction to "Andie", my blond postal co-worker in the later weeks of the summer of 1998 and we dated a couple of times before her premature return to school mid-month. It was very exciting to fall for a girl who liked me back, particularly when she was as hot as Miss Andie was. The postal job that was a pain in the butt back in the June had really grown on me by summer's end and I felt like a grew a lot that summer heading into my junior year of college the following month.
August 1989 vs. August 1999 vs. August 2009
Winner: 2009--Without question my all-time best first date was with "Brooke", a barely legal hottie who I connected with earlier in the summer and took to the Lost Island water park in Waterloo, Iowa, in August. It was one of the best days of my life and that alone made August 2009 the slam-dunk winner of this trio of contenders, but I also got to attend my last Minnesota Twins game at the Metrodome with some high school friends that month and balance all my fairs and road trips as well as score a second day at the Minnesota State Fair for the first time ever. Hard for me at this point to imagine another month in my future that will be as packed with good memories as August 2009.
August 1990 vs. August 2000 vs. August 2010
Winner: 1990--How cruel it is that the #1 and #2 months of my entire life are pitted up against each other. August 2000 was my first foray into online dating as well as online political debate, and both ventures yielded some friends I'm still close with today. But it's still light years behind August 1990, the month that molded my personality more than any other month before or after. I was 12 years old going into the month and 13 coming out of it, tagging along with my dad daily through the car lots of southwestern and south-central Minnesota doing vinyl repair work. I was at the brink of discovering my love for road-tripping before this venture but afterwards I was a lifetime hard case. Furthermore, puberty was now fully setting in and seeing all the cute girls walking the sidewalks near the car lots became more and more thrilling for me as the weeks went on, setting the foundation for the hot girls I was about to come in contact with daily at my new junior high school.
August 1991 vs. August 2001 vs. August 2011
Winner: 2001--It was a tough call between August 1991 and 2001, but the best of the summer of 1991 was behind my by this point in the summer while the summer of 2001 still had its best to come, enjoying all my fairs--which included a free concert by Ronnie Milsap at the Minnesota State Fair late in the month--as well as my late night visits to the Yahoo! Politics Chat debating the early months of the pre-9/11 Bush administration with a group of regulars whose company I came to enjoy. But the escalating daily banter with Dana, a girl I met online and who would become one of my most legendary love interests, was what made August 2001 the most exciting.
August 1992 vs. August 2002 vs. August 2012
Winner: 1992--Here's a battle of three stinkers if there ever was one but I guess 1992 was the best of the worst. My cousin came down from northern Minnesota for what would be his last visit during my boyhood years, even though the plans didn't work out entirely smoothly. Beyond that though, my excitement about recording old MacGyver episodes from cable were on hold that month because the cable network was airing a plethora of episodes I already had recorded, the Minnesota Twins' promising season collapsed amidst the August pennant hunt, and the Presidential campaign was largely stalled out except for the Republican Convention. It was a thoroughly average month but a tick better than August 2012 and miles better than the disastrous August 2002.
Unfortunately, my next installment will profile the month of September, although to be fair I've had a few exciting Septembers in years past.
posted by Mark at 11:01 AM
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