Thoughts on Summer

Summertime, when I was younger, was filled with interest sometimes, boredom others. I can remember hours spent in front of the big window fan in the living room, listening to the warble of my own voice as I sang through the fan blades just to fill the time. I can remember chasing the shade of the tree in our yard with blankets when I sat to read, an adventure story recommended by the lady at the public library. Good times were filled with our big wading pool in the backyard, which took forever to fill. But, when it was filled, we'd sneak the coffee table up from the basement recreation room and pretend we were Esther Williams' bathing beauties, doing synchronized plunges into the water until it got too soggy around the edges of the pool and table legs sank into the mud and grass.

By day, my brother played little league baseball and rode his bicycle at break-neck speeds, jumping curbs. My sister and I took arts and crafts lessons at the Y. We went to day camp, made macaroni necklaces and pretended to be Pocahantas. And we'd play jump rope and hopscotch, spies and school teachers, and princess and the witch. Our dolls were served tea and our porches and shadowed aisles between the shrubs became fairy castles. We climbed fences and trees and eyed green apples. We went to summer camps and learned to make lanyards just for Dad. We explored free enterprise with lemonade stands and theatrical pageants.

And, when I was a little older, we would put on our bathing suits and ride our bikes a mile to the high school, where they had an Olympic size swimming pool. And, the water was so delicious and cool. And on the way home, smelling of the chlorine, we'd stop at the Whistle Stop Pop Shop and trade empty bottles scavenged around the neighborhood for full ones of strange flavors. And at night, we would gather on someone's front lawn and play red-light/green-light with the big search light that arched across the sky advertising the auto dealership "Open" or the city carnival or music night at the band shell in the middle of town. We would peep into living room windows to see what they were watching on TV and tell each other horror stories like "the hook."

Some nights, Dad would take us all out in our pajamas for an ice cream or a root beer. And some nights, we would just go for a drive with no destination in mind. Sometimes, there was the drive-in movie and some nights movies on the front lawn with a bed sheet hung in the tree for a screen and all the neighborhood sharing huge bowls of popcorn and ice creams in little cups with wooden paddle spoons.

My childhood was, of course, the sort one has living in a suburban environment. It was the sort of place in which everyone wants their kids to grow up. It was a safe place and a safe time and a time without real responsibility.

Older now, I wonder why I no longer look forward to the coming of summer. Why it was so full of joy, even in the midst of boredom then and merely one more day or week or season of heat to be gotten past now. What became of the sudden storms that filled the day with night time, flooded the streets with quick torrents of water, only to melt away with the sun once more. Where did my days of Huckleberry Finn go to be replaced by a life time of being one of "Them?"

In my mind, I still hear the radio announcer broadcasting the baseball game. I still hear the click of baseball cards pinned to the spokes of bicycle wheels with wooden clothespins. I still here a small child's voice shrilling at my front door: "can Angel come out to play?"

	Origins of Summer			Summer Music
	Summer Season Page			Angel-Pie's Main Page

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