The dog days of summer are here, and as I step outside into the thick, soupy air that buzzes with the vibrato cries of cicadas, I am taken back to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of my youth when I would pass the time in the backyard hammock doing absolutely nothing. The hammock hung beneath the great catalpa tree that lorded over our old Pennsylvania farmhouse. The tree was huge—seventy feet tall with a wide, spreading canopy that gave shade to dogs, cats, humans, and any other