When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was one of the year’s high holy days, right up there with Halloween and the last day of school, because that was when my parents took my sister and me to the beach for the annual fireworks show.

These days there are pyrotechnics just about every weekend at local fairs, concerts, baseball games, neighborhood picnics and for all I know, poetry readings. Fireworks have lost their charm and I no longer go out of my way to watch exploding bursts of color.

Likewise, an ice cream cone, available only at distant parlors, was a rare summer treat bestowed as a reward for a good report card or mowing the lawn. Now, of course, you don’t have to drive more than 10 minutes to gorge yourself on cones, sundaes, shakes, banana splits and other frozen delights in scores of flavors.

And though I grew up only a mile or so from West Haven’s Savin Rock, one of the largest amusement parks in New England, my family only visited once a year, so we never got bored riding the Thunderbolt roller coaster, mill chute, bumper cars, Ferris wheel and merry-go-round.

Fast forward to 2016, now the end of July, and I’m already counting the days to the first snowstorm. All this extraordinarily hot, sunny weather is simply too much of a good thing.

Sure, we’ve had a sprinkle or two, and the next few days may bring some showers, but I don’t have to tell you that it’s been one of the sunniest, driest seasons on record. There have been virtually unlimited opportunities for kayaking, bicycling, hiking, swimming and other warm-weather activities, and like many of my friends I’ve certainly taken advantage of day after day after day of clear skies.

Yet the other day when a buddy proposed paddling out to Fishers Island from Esker Point in Noank, one of my favorite local excursions, I almost found myself declining the invitation. Don’t get me wrong – it was, as always, a wonderful trip, but come one, how many days in a row of perfect conditions do we need?

Why bother even watching the weather on TV? Meteorologists always give the same forecast: Sunny and hot.

Maybe the heat is finally getting to me.

Our morning runs, even at 8 a.m., have become sweaty slogs, loping along while swatting at deer flies.

Post-run swims in the lake no longer are refreshing in what feels like bath water.

Any breeze is like exhaust from a blast furnace.

All right, enough complaining. I’d be whining much more bitterly if this summer had been a nonstop monsoon.

And even though I’ve spent half my waking hours, it seems, watering the garden, we’ve enjoyed a bountiful harvest because of all the sunlight.

The dry weather also has meant almost a complete absence of mosquitoes. Really, I haven’t had one bite since May, haven’t lain awake while the whining buzz of a bloodsucker circled.

I know I’m tempting fate, but I also haven’t pulled one deer tick from an arm, leg or other body part. By this time last year I’d already contracted Lyme disease twice.

And it could be much worse. We could be living in Macon, Georgia, Houston, Texas or some other godforsaken hellhole where the temperature and humidity perpetually remain in the triple digits.

Still, it would be satisfying to witness one monstrous storm, complete with howling winds, stroboscope lightning and percussive thunderclaps. At this point I’ll settle for a day of soaking rain.

I know, I know – one miserable day next February, I’ll eat these words after I’ve shoveled the driveway 182 times and ventured out in blizzards to haul in 714 loads of firewood and still have to walk around indoors wearing a mountaineering parka and expedition mittens, I’ll look back longingly at the summer of 2016.

I guess we’re never satisfied.

And so, for the time being, I waken every morning to George Harrison’s celebrated lyrics:

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes …