DEC 21, 2009 – 12:00AM

For my high school graduation present, my parents took me for vacation that summer to England and Scotland.

One late-June day, we decided to drive to Stonehenge to view the massive standing stones.

We poked around the English countryside until we found ’em, and as we were admiring the massive monoliths, we were approached, rather quickly, by a handful of skittish security guards. In their proper English way, they suggested we get the heck out of Dodge, fast, because they had received word that a large number of bikers — that’s motorcyclists, by the way — were headed our way.

It seems we had chosen the day of the summer solstice to visit the Salisbury Plain. Normally, the standing stones are roped off, but at the solstice the ropes come down — and the crazies come out: Druids, druid wannabes, King Arthur and assorted loons converge on Stonehenge because of its purported mystical/astrological/astronomical properties. And the year we were there, bikers were descending en masse to stir up a little trouble with the masses.

Security took one look at the Hartsocks — think “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” with me as Rusty — and figured we’d better beat it before we were raped and pillaged and left to die under the shadow of the standing stones.

Thus began for me a lifelong fondness for the solstices (solsti?) — and preternatural fear of wilding Hog riders.

Truth be told, I prefer the winter solstice to the summer one.

As the longest day of the year, the summer solstice seems to carry more negative connotations (beyond tough guys in leather with mayhem on their minds). Though it marks the start of summer, it also marks the beginning of the end of lots of daylight. From then until December, every day is “shorter” than the one before it.

In contrast, the winter solstice represents just the opposite: Every day is longer than the one before it. After weathering the encroachment of night onto day (or at least darkness onto light), the winter solstice represents light at the end of the cold, dark tunnel.

The winter solstice is just before noon (Central time) Monday.

Riding home for dinner on the eve of the solstice, I thought about how nice it would be to gain daylight for the next six months. I thought about how just a few days earlier, I noticed my awesomely awful biker tan had all but faded away, and my appendages were the same catfish-belly color for their length with barely noticeable delineation of where my shorts and short sleeves ended. My vitamin D production has plummeted precipitously.

As I neared my house, though, blinded by warming thoughts of brighter days ahead, I rode up a short climb and looked up into the darkness of the almost-longest night of the year. There hung a gorgeous Cheshire Cat moon, complete with earthshine — the partial illumination of the night side of the moon thanks to reflection of sunlight off the Earth. Nearby sparkled bright Jupiter, seemingly a thumb-and-forefinger’s distance away.

Such a sight wouldn’t have been possible in June, at least not at 6:30 p.m.

So it dawned on me maybe all this talk of “long days” and “short nights” doesn’t really mean much at all. Sunrise, sunset. Dark, light. The turning Earth, turning wheels. Tick, tock. Time is relentless — and relative.

And for heaven’s sake, watch out for bad-news Brits on motorbikes.