If you’re celebrating the summer solstice (June 21) or Midsummer (June 24), you probably love hot weather or, at least fake loving hot weather just so you are part of the “we love summer” fad.

I was supposed to be born in Midwinter (December 21), but my parents wanted a dog-days-of-August baby, so Mother kept jumping out of airplanes to shake things up or to scare me into being born early. She was also a wing walker, but that’s another story.

Suffice it to say, I ended up a Leo, and while it’s been nice being the best of the sun signs, I’d trade away all that glory to have a winter birthday. A little-known fact about my reign as a Leo is that I’m the one who posed for the MGM logo. (My stage name was “Tanner” to help the family duck all the taxes on royalties.)

Frankly, I don’t understand the unwashed’s preoccupation with summer, the days when people sweat like pigs and/or lie around nearly naked and get sunburnt–or worse. Otherwise, they stay inside with the A/C running full blast and then complain about the power bill. The smart summer lovers invest in companies that make sunblock creams and lotions (aka sunscreen) and laugh all the way to the bank while ignoring stories like this: About 75 percent of sunscreens have inferior sun protection or worrisome ingredients.

I was so ticked off about being born in August that ultimately my parents couldn’t do anything with me and pushed me out the car door in the Everglades on their way to Key West. Ultimately, I was raised by gators (the real thing, not those University of Florida wusses). Papa Gator always used to tell me, “Bite first and ask questions later.”

I’m not making this up.

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In other news, I unpublished my Facebook author’s page today since the powers that be who run the place have refused to fix the software fault that’s rendered the page nearly useless. There’s a two-week countdown before the page is gone for good.

—Malcolm