At least football has no rainouts

Vacations never seem to come with enough staying power. Not like the rain, which has made the Mahoning Valley its home all summer.

Specifically and especially, the rain seems to enjoy our backyard and — for a brief but all-too-effective time — our garage and basement.

So in case you were wondering, my vacation was the not sort from which you post Facebook photos of exotic locations and “check in” at beach-front restaurants.

I did spend one day visiting The Elmton with a friend and doing some fishing, but on balance, last week was more “stay-cation” than vacation.

My buddy and I managed one bass between us, and I wasn’t the guy who caught it. He took a picture of the catch of the day before throwing it back.

My vacation photos are of a bunch of ruined stuff that once took up space in our garage and basement.

Among the casualties? A soggy couch that began its final day of service in one piece, but fell victim to a chain saw as my father-in-law and I tried to make the best use of available space in a Dumpster. That couch — acquired a generation ago — had company, including 264 square feet of ruined carpeting.

My last extended time off before the annual high school football preview push also included more hours than I’ve spent in home-improvement stories in a decade or more.

All because summer in the Mahoning Valley was, quite literally, washed out. And there are more of those visits to come. This particular flood may have happened in one day, but returning to normal at our house will take a bit longer than that.

It’s OK. Summer is over anyway — it was over before it started — so why not focus on something else?

Right now, it’s shopping for flooring and flooring-related accessories and getting back to work, where before we know it, the focus will be on football.

It is probably already there for some of our readers, since we’re just two weeks away from Aug. 1, which is the official start of coaching in high school football in Ohio.

We’re already compiling information for our annual Blitz preview here at 107 Vindicator Square. It’s our biggest project of the year.

And more football news is on the way.

Youngstown State is about to enter the Bo Pelini era. Excitement and expectations are as high for the Penguins as they’ve been in a number of years. It’s playoffs or bust for YSU, which returns plenty of key performers on offense and has added new faces on defense and expects to change its philosophy on that side of the ball.

It’s not even just preps and the Penguins.

An announcement is expected today about an NFL developmental league team coming to Niles. Mid-week games — perhaps a primer for the usual weekend diet of high school, college and the NFL — appear on the way.

As my colleague Joe Scalzo likes to say, “You can never have too much football coverage in the Mahoning Valley.”

But you can definitely have too much rain.

Write Vindicator Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.