Ham Salad For The Soul

In trying times, we're falling back on some simple comforts today.

We had the first crisp day of late summer this week in Kentucky.

That first crisp day is always a lie, but it’s a lie that feels a little bit like hope, which the best lies always do. It was 62 degrees Wednesday morning, and after weeks and weeks of it hitting a muggy 80 degrees before I could even have my first cup of coffee, it was an amazing feeling. I’m a sweaty man; I don’t love summer. I appreciate summer, accept it for what it is, a lazy time full of pleasant pastimes, but there’s been a lot less to appreciate about it in this accursed year.

Most years, that first cool August morning feels like a hint that the fall will come, that we’ll soon have school back in session and get our business back in order in general, that the whole messy world of the summer will finally take shape again. It feels like football weather, and of course that means a great deal to me—the traditions, the excitement, the natural flow of the seasons as they’ve always been.

Of course, much of that won’t be …