Remember when planning a summer day meant glancing out the window to see if it might rain?

Summer now comes with a checklist. What’s the temperature? What’s the heat index? Is there a thunderstorm coming? What’s the air quality index? Is wildfire smoke drifting in from Canada? Should the kids bring swimsuits or stay inside? Will tonight’s baseball game actually happen?

While we wondered if summer would ever come at all this year. It did, in fact, arrive — but summer is now a season that requires much more planning than it once did.

Consider the progression of this summer thus far. June was downright chilly, relatively speaking, so much so that many families barely made it to the neighborhood pool before July arrived. Then came torrential rains that washed out games and park days. Next came stretches of oppressive heat that made playgrounds feel more like ovens than places to burn off energy.

Now, it’s the summer of smoke.

Neighborhood pools that once closed only for lightning now sometimes close because the air itself isn’t healthy enough to breathe. Many summer sporting events — whether Park District baseball or major league matchups — have been canceled or postponed. Plenty of parents have become awfully familiar with trampoline parks.

And while the smoke may cloud the skies, it lays bare our varying degrees of risk tolerance.

Years after many of us put away our COVID-19 masks, these facial adornments are returning to the streets of our city as a way to combat the haze, bringing with them unpleasant memories of the dark days of the pandemic. Some people won’t leave home without one. Others think little of eating on a patio or sending the kids to the park. As with so many things, people assess risk differently.

Don’t judge, we say, lest you be judged yourself.

The larger point is that smoke has joined storms, heat and heavy rain as another recurring variable around which families plan their summers.

It feels as if we may be witnessing a generational shift unfolding, with today’s kids never knowing anything different from the regular routine of midsummer air quality issues and the need to check the index to make sure it’s safe to play outside for stretches of July. They’ll grow up assuming splash pads close for smoke, practices get canceled for heat and parents keep an eye on wildfire maps despite living a thousand miles from the nearest blaze. That’s becoming normal, even if it still feels remarkably new to many adults.

Perhaps that’s contributing to what many people miss most. Not perfect weather, which we’ve never had, but the confidence that if the sun was shining, you could simply head outside. Summer has always been the season of little rituals: the first trip to the neighborhood pool, pickup baseball games that lasted until dusk, impromptu bike rides, dinner on the patio, ice cream melting faster than anyone could eat it. None of those traditions have disappeared, but they now come with more caveats.

Summer once required little more planning than grabbing sunscreen and a towel. Now it requires contingency plans.

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