Summer Musings

Today is the first day of summer, Jun 21, 2012. As I sit here pondering I note the absence of what can only be called "summerphilia."

Summer used to mean the beginning of the freest, most intriguing time of the year. What would happen? What would be explored, conquered, played, danced, loved?

I did not grow up in a neighborhood where people generally could afford camps; either day or overnight. Consequently activity time began right after a hurried breakfast and continued until some time after dark. (As we got older a great deal after dark. In fact often not until it got light again.) As a young boy I remember laying in my bed in the early morning and listening out the window to determine if any of my mates had begun the day without me. Sounds of play propelled me from my bed like no other event could. Running to join the army, or the cowboys and indians, or to play baseball or touch or tackle, or basketball, or wireball, or volleyball, or step ball, or handball, or stck ball, or half ball, or bottle caps, or box ball, or spring, or buck-buck, or even marbles or flip cards. 

In general we did not play tennis; you needed a racket. We did not play soccer; you needed a field (and to know how to play). 

Temperature control was via the garden hose which yes, we drank out of (even though my mother was certain that's how one got polio). Up until the teens many of us had small plastic pools that had metal skeletons for form (extruded palstic pools not being invented yet). We could spend hours playing in 1 foot of water. Six or eight people in a pool perhaps 7' square. When it got too hot or as we got hungry there were water ice trucks, pretzel carts, Mister Softee, Jack and Jill and Good Humor. If we had some money we could go to Lenny's Hot Dogs and get a hot dog and fish cake sandwich with pepper hash and sauerkraut. We went to the movies sometime. There were about 7 theaters within walking distance of our neighborhood.  

We virtually never took a family vacation. Day trips to the Jersey shore and rented lockers at the Presedential Hotel in AC. Playing on the beach and getting incredible sun burns. Noxema in the evening to ease the pain and then days of pleasure peeling skin.

Truth be told, there were also long hours of boredom. These usually were filled by telling jokes, cutting each other down, and engaging in what today would be called bullying. There were not true vicitms however as at any moment the aggressor could be come the attacked. All it took was a well timed "your mama..." and the tables turned.

Often we'd leave the neighborhood taking the "el" downtown to center city Philly. Most of us began doing this at 9 or 10 years old. (My suburban friends would issue an Amber alert if they thought their 10 year olds took the train alone). We'd walk around; go to the Free Library, Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences. We'd grab a slice at King of Pizza on Market St. If we had a little more money we'd visit Levis' Hot Dogs on South St. and get a dog and a Champ Cherry Soda.

The summer vacation was 10 weeks long. It seemed an eternity of possibility. The build-up to June 21st was intense and the release was amazing. 

I had a preternatural sense at quite a young age that all this would be gone someday. I remember standing outside my row house in Philadelphia just after a summer storm and smelling the ozone and seeing the intense green of the neighborhood and thinking; "Look carefully so you can remember. It will all be gone someday. You will move, people will die. Enjoy this!" While these thoughts were odd for a boy perhaps 11 years old, they filled me with both joy and an almost staggering saddness. To know so young that all things must pass.

Things really began to change, as they must, once we discovered girls, music, and cars. Then, it being the 60's, we discovered all sorts of delightful and mostly illegal diversions. There was a lot of fun to be had but the summers gradually lost their gloss as we did more of what we desired all year round. As school ended and people scatttered, as love was gained and lost and gained again and different delights demanded our time, we...grew up...and then we grew old. 

I still look forward to 6/21 every year. But it is more the fondness of a memory than a promise of adventure. But perhaps, to paraphrase Peter Pan, getting older is the greatest adventure of all.