Summer

He is just one man, modest and unknown. But Ron Kennedy was moved by the great summery sun above Logan Circle to perform a gesture that would capture the mood of thousands. At 9 a.m. yesterday, Kennedy gripped the bottom edge of his T-shirt and began to lift skyward. A cotton curtain rose over his round belly and the furry spread of his chest until Kennedy was gloriously shirtless in a public place, popping open like a pink flower to kick off his own personal summer. "It's only April.

On the third Monday of the month during summer, Woodbury gets the blues. And jazz. And swing. Concerts in the Park features the Bonsal Blues Band, a 56-year-old community band that plays a wide selection of music. It also has an 18-piece dance band. Any musician is encouraged to join. "We haven't had concerts in the last four years because of budget issues and poor attendance," said Tom Dukelow, director of parks and recreation in Woodbury. The Bonsal Blues Band started the season June 20, attracting about 85 people.

With 6.7 seconds left and her team trailing by one point, Jessica Hawk of Overbrook High School stepped to the line to attempt two free throws that could win the game. The first missed. So did the second. A Sacred Heart played snagged the rebound and was fouled. The game was lost. But it wasn't a championship game. It wasn't a playoff game. It wasn't even a regular-season game. "This is just a chance for them to come out, play and have some fun," said Overbrook coach Jim Puderbach, who watched from the stands.

In The Green Ray, a Jules Verne romance set in Scotland, people who witnessed a sunset that gave off a special light were magically - and momentarily - blessed with an insight into the way others really felt. Summer, the fifth installment in the promised sextet of films that Eric Rohmer has christened "Comedies and Proverbs," proves once again that Rohmer is a director who needs no help in illuminating the dilemmas and deepest emotions of his characters. This film was released in France under the title Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray)

One month ago, on the last Wednesday evening in May, I rushed home to have ABC baffle me with the season finales of "Lost" and "Alias" - and I loved it. A month later, things are different. I don't have any sense of urgency about TV this summer - no need, as with the aforementioned shows, or with "Desperate Housewives" - to watch programs the very second the networks broadcast them. Most shows are bad or dull, and the ones that aren't, for the most part, are easily stacked up on videotape or TiVo until I get the time and inclination to catch up. This isn't new, but my reaction to it is. Instead of getting the summertime blues, and carping about the sorry state of warm-weather television, I find myself being grateful for the break.

PARDON ME for bringing up summer weeks before Ryan, Doc, Chase and Jimmy hit the diamonds in Clearwater, Fla., but with the recent snowfalls, thaws and rains leaving lake-side puddles in the streets, I have water on the brain. The water in my thoughts is what was missing this summer from the Swimmo, as we call the public pool here in Fishtown, and a number of other watering holes in the city. What would've been a disaster at the outset of the summer for the city in which only 10 pools opened was averted as more than 75 percent of the pools opened thanks to fund raising and creative work by the Recreation Department's staff.

If Labor Day were the first Monday in October instead of the first Monday in September, hard-working Americans might follow the perfectly reasonably impulse to spend their special day in rest and repose. But since Labor Day falls in summer, and has become the unofficial end of the season, there is an almost lemminglike impulse to head for the sea (or the mountains, pool, picnic in the park, barbecue etc.) that makes it practically impossible for any self-respecting person to just sit back and relax.

Just when flights of fancy have been grounded by the heat and spirits have slumped in a steamy malaise, comes news of the perfect antidote: a mysterious tiger in the woods of northern Pennsylvania. City-dwellers sit around and complain about the doldrums of summer, but the folks of Nicholson, Pa., and environs have come up with the ideal way to break out of their lethargy. Whose imagination wouldn't be fired up at the prospect of seeing behind the next tree (choose one): a 350-pound brown cat with white spots, a baby puma with spots or a long, orange tiger loping "like you see on TV"?

According to the calendar, the end of summer arrived this year with the autumnal equinox on Sept. 23, "the first day of fall. " This heavenly dividing point may make some abstract, symbolic sense (the equinox is the moment when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are equal), but where I live on the Maine coast, the end of summer comes a lot sooner, usually by the end of August. It does not come without warning. As soon as the blueberries ripen and the goldenrod blooms, when the milkweed pods are heavy with silk and the blackberries' burgundy darkens, the seasoned Mainer knows it's all over but the shouting.

You realize, of course, that after this weekend, that's it. Poof. Back to school. Back to work. Back-to-back two-day weekends 'til pumpkin harvest. The annual three-day change of life known as Labor Day Weekend is upon us - heralding the official end, despite what Herb Clarke and your desk calendar say, of another Philadelphia summer. Sure, go on and panic. Cry if you want to; it might bring some color to your face. But do keep this in mind: Labor Day is the time to make up for lost opportunity.