Summer is officially here. Sure, it’s felt like summer across most of the Northern Hemisphere for several weeks, but with last night’s solstice we are officially into the season of relaxing and vacation and getting away from it all. At least, that’s the theory. In my mind, summer conjures up images of mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, painting the outside of various buildings, road work interrupting traffic flow, and other sweat-inducing things that also seem to only happen during the summer. Still, there’s baseball, hanging out at the ol’ swimming hole, and going for long walks in the cool of the evening (assuming the evening actually cools). Oh, and girls. Girls in summer are a joy unto themselves and that is exactly where our focus shall be this week.

Girls and summer have had this partnership for centuries. Summer provides the necessary heat and girls respond by shedding a few of the 37 layers under which they were living throughout the winter and most of the spring, reminding us that there really is a beautiful person under all those piles of cotton and wool. And boys? Boys respond by getting into trouble. Everytime. We fall in love with those beautiful girls of summer, and then proceed to do some of the most stupid things imaginable in order to make sure the object of our affection knows just how much we care.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting had it been set any other time of year. He needed that pool as the catalyst for both romance and trouble. He needed the heat and the long days. He needed the impulsiveness, anger, and jealousy that young men feel more strongly in summer. Not that the story would have ended any differently had it been set in, say, autumn. People still fall in love and make stupid mistakes in autumn; they’re just not as interesting then as when we do it in summer.