Memories of Summers Past#

Summers in the South are hot and humid. I grew up in a time when air conditioning was not common. I had already graduated high school when we got our first home with central A/C. Prior to that we only had window units – one in my parent’s bedroom upstairs and one in the downstairs den (if we had A/C at all). The rest of the house was generally hot and sticky. Nowadays, though, air conditioning is the norm and we forget sometimes what the real world is like.

Today, of course, our home has an efficient A/C system. So efficient that sometimes it’s a bit too cool! Now, my office is located on the other side of the garage here at the house. A bit ago I walked out into the garage, heading to the office and was met with the heat and humidity that is just part and parcel of this part of the country. What caught my eye, though, was the blue sky and banks of fluffy white clouds seen through the open garage door. Why that sight reminded me of my childhood I cannot say. What I do know is that for a few moments I was reliving those bright, hot summer days when the sky was filled with those fluffy white clouds and times were simpler and life was much more fun.

That sight drove me to do something fairly rare: I took my laptop outside to the patio and sat down to write this little message. There’s something almost magical about sitting in the shade, looking out through the screens at the bright sunlit landscape and listening to the birds call to each other. Yes, it’s not terribly comfortable. After all, the temperature is about 86 degrees F, and the humidity is 68% so the “feels like” temp is about 90. But in the shade, with a light breeze passing through occasionally, it’s not insufferable.

Of course, this is not the first time I’ve experienced summer-time nostalgia. A few years ago I regularly walked 2.6 miles, climbing a 700 foot hill in the process. The road I followed was located in a wooded area with only a forest of tall pines and oaks around me. Often in the summer, as I looked out through the pines at the distant hills set against that same blue sky filled with those same summer-time banks of fluffy white clouds I would be taken back to my childhood and reminded of some long ago event or experience.

Today, as I sit here, I’m watching a male redbird perched on the bird feeder having an afternoon snack. A dragonfly flits about the yard and somewhere there’s a cricket singing incessantly. And, again, I go back to those carefree days of my childhood when I spent whole days outside, riding my bike, playing tag, and doing all the other things that kids back in those days did to fill their summer days.

I’m reminded of long ago summer Sundays when the family would go down to the local farmer’s market and pickup a big, juicy watermelon and maybe a stick of sugarcane. We’d come home, put the melon in the freezer for a bit, then cut off and strip back a bit of sugar cane to chew on while the melon chills.

Or maybe we’d spend some time hand-cranking the ice cream churn. You know, the kind with the wooden tub that got harder and harder to turn as the ice cream firmed up until eventually you couldn’t turn it any more. Homemade ice cream was the best, though for us kids, the distorted, jingly sound of the ice cream truck’s loudspeaker playing some old music box music was a call to action. We didn’t get creamsicles or Astropops – you know the red-white-and-blue multi-sided popsicle shaped like a rocket – often so it was always a treat. Or, maybe it was a Nutty Buddy, or even basic ice cream sandwich (though not often!). It didn’t matter; it was an ice cream treat on hot Sunday afternoon!

Maybe it’s where I live, but I don’t see ice cream trucks often anymore. Like Saturday morning cartoons, have we lost yet another piece of what made our childhoods so special? And kids no longer spend their summer days outside riding bikes and playing tag, and generally getting up to no good. Rather, they spend them within the air conditioned cocoon called home, pushing buttons on devices playing video games, their worlds seemingly narrowed to a 10 inch screen.

I wonder, when they grow old, what their reminiscences about their childhood will encompass. What will they tell their kids and grandkids about their childhood? Will they look out the garage door at the huge, fluffy clouds floating in the azure blue sky and be reminded of earlier, simpler, happier times?