THESE AREN'T RAINIERS, BUT THEY'LL HAVE TO DO

In the West, it's becoming the sad time of year. No, not the monsoons, though this summer has seen a rough one where microbursts of up to 90 miles per hour ripped the roof off our church.

No, it's not the opening NFL camp of the Arizona Cardinals. Actually there are only two reasons why the Cardinals won't be good again this season: Bill and Michael Bidwill.

No, it's not the oppressive heat. It was much hotter in the Midwest and at Disneyland last Monday where the temp was 100 and the humidity wasn't far behind.

No, it's not the Diamondbacks and their stoic and stolid no nonsense/no personality manager Bob Melvin. They're no good, but what NL team is? The media would have you believe it's the Mets, but we know starting pitching and we know better.

It's the end of RAiNIER CHERRIES!! What a sad time! What a great fruit. In San Diego I bought two pounds for $4.99. When I returned to Scottsdale I bought one pound for $6.99. Against my wife's wishes, but, hey, they're coming to an end. And I'm hooked.

I go back to my neighbor's cherry tree when I was a kid. I loved them then, too. But not like Orla Ray "Butch" Lashbrook. He'd sit in that tree and eat his fill. It made Mrs. Igo so mad to see him eat her cherries. He'd just come down and laugh and run off. But they couldn't touch RaIniers.

Huge yellow and red cherries come in July and are gone by the end of the month. I start craving them around May 1. We tried freezing some once, but no go. I guess I'll just have to stick around Arizona next July to partake in culinary heaven.

On an unrelated note, thanks to loyal reader Scott Q. who reminded me that I omitted one dog from an earlier blog--Mac. How I could forget that dog, I don't know. A couple of summer school students set him in my chair one morning just before the bell rang. They told me one of their dogs had pups and this one was mine.

A heinz, he was dark black and I said, "Hey, he's dark like you, Mac (student MacArthur Thomas), I'll call him Mac."

Mac responded, "That isn't funny, Mr. Quinn. I got babies named after me." We kidded a lot; I knew he wasn't mad. And so Mac was taken home to the family. In a line of dogs who wouldn't come to me, Mac fit right in. When called, he'd usually take off and go the other way. He was a mischievous little guy.

We tired of him and gave him to a neighbor who would only take him if we threw in the dog house. We did, gladly. To top it off, I found out later that the girls that presented him to me had just found him on the street. Oh, well. I hope MacArthur's babies turned out better.