We wait all winter for the spring and then for the summer only to find that in 8 weeks, the summer has come and gone just like that, like with the snap of a finger.
The summer of 2019 flew by.
The major mark this summer in the life and times of the city was about the biggest event in the city’s history.
The opening of the Encore Boston Harbor Casino and Hotel is unequalled as a summer event in this city.
It was the summer of the coming of the casino and hotel.
It was the summer when a city within the city was created, when 5200 employees were hired, when millions in new revenues began pouring into the city treasury.
What exactly the future holds is anyone’s guess.
Right now, the Encore Boston Harbor is the single giant resonant memory of the Summer of 2019 in the city’s collective mindset.
There is no other valid monument that marks the Summer of 2019. The summer’s mundanity, its effect on all of us was manifold. Some of us missed out on the summer for personal reasons.
Many residents lost a loved one.
Hundreds of new residents moved in and hundreds more moved out.
For many younger people, this was the summer they met and fell in love.
For many others, it was the summer of despair, when the love went out the window and life changed.
For many parents it was the summer of little league and baseball, picnics and hours spent at the city’s parks or the pool.
It was about drives up to New Hampshire, to the lakes region and to Maine.
It was about lobster and sausage, stakes and chicken kabobs on the grill.
It was about wearing no sweaters or jackets, walking around in shorts and t-shirts, halter tops and loose fitted summer clothing.
And mostly it was about luxuriating in the warmth of a steady breeze on a summer night.
In another week, all of the above is like a slate that has been cleaned because the summer has come to an end.
The summer of 2019 is history.
Many babies were born.