When I was a rookie in the newspaper game, this was the time of year when a hard-boiled editor two days past a shower and shave said in his whiskey rasp, “Here's a roll of quarters, go do a story about what two bits can still buy.”
The roll of quarters was a roll of nickels when the editor was a junior, but the problem hadn't changed.
Good news stories had gone on vacation with the folk who generated them -- the politicians, half the detective squad and the school board.
The editors scrambled for black ink to fill the white space between the ads.
The dog days of summer had arrived.
The '60s were late landing in western Canadian newsrooms, culturally speaking. We had older reporters and editors whose career high point was working with Ernest Hemingway at the Toronto Star.
They were all single and their idea of a fine summer Saturday morning was sitting on a back stoop, smoking cigarettes and typing short stories to submit to fiction-publishing magazines in New England.
Accordingly, the burden to fill the newspaper pages during the dog days fell onto the shoulders of us young and hungry cubs.
Five decades on, the roll of quarters would now be a roll of toonies if an editor had the inclination to assign such a story.
It was the Greeks or the Romans who coined the dog days phrase. The phrase has an astrological origin. It is the season when Sirius, the Dog Star rises with the sun – from early July to mid-August.
It was a season of apprehension.
It was not thought to be a propitious time for major enterprises like going to war.
Better drink a glass of cool wine and to wait for the lemons and olives to ripen while the doves stayed out of the sun in the belfries.
The dog days metaphor has morphed to symbolize the vague listlessness that accompanies the debilitating heat of summer.
Today there is a sharp edge for us to the way the ancients understood the dangers of the dog days.
These are dog days for the British looking for the advantages of Brexit.
These are dog days for U.S. Republicans and Democrats at presidential conventions with two candidates neither the parties nor the voters are happy with.
These are dog days for American cops wondering who on the thin blue line will take the next bullet.
These are dog days for Alberta conservatives wrestling their sweaty way to the top to navigate their party through a tornado called “unite the right.”
These are dog days in Didsbury and the region for those who have lost jobs this year and are looking for new ones.
If only life were as simple as what can a quarter – or a toonie -- still buy.
