I remember summers, in Wyoming, my home town
and in Warsaw, NY
The smell of summer was indescribable,
it was different and permeated my soul.
I remember T-Shirt baseball,
Firemen's Picnics and Town Fairs,
trips to Darien Lake state park,
Picnics and swimming
Fairs with Raw clams, clam bakes
corn on the cob, beer tents and good ole boys
and girls my age,
in training bras
strutting their stuff, just out of reach and
snobbing their way around town
Blue moon ice cream on sugar cones
muggy weather
and coppertone (the only sunscreen)
Grass and hay, baled and stacked
late night sunsets, and harvest moons
tents and flashlights and too hot sleeping bags
and Playboys snuck under the pillow
I remember the 70's
and Three dog night,
Disco and Saturday Night Fever
and Gallon jugs of Gallo,
Rose
Summer, was ...
special and broke the years up nicely.
From Winter, getting-ready-for-winter (fall)
getting-over-winter(spring)
and then ... summer
We had four seasons, but I reduced them to two.
Catching Fireflies, and june bugs
smacking mesquitos bulging with your blood,
and getting welts from black fly bites.
Wasps, hornets, bees, bumble bees,
burdock stuck to your socks
and hoe-ing the garden.
Catching possums in traps,
racoons, shooting 'em and burying the varmits
to save the vegetables.
Tons of squirrels and occasional skunk smells ...
Eating Fresh tomatoes with salt,
tomato sandwiches, on white bread with Miracle Whip
fresh cucumbers
and lawn mower exhaust
The smell of gas, as you poured it, got it on your hands
muddy sneakers, summer rainstorms, lightning and thunder and
b-b-guns and mini-bikes
Hunting for and selling night crawlers by flashlight,
storing them in a clawfoot tub we sunk in the ground,
with a plywood cover
Sitting at the swap meet.
Unloading the van, newspaper
and antique crap,
collections for me and the girls:
I collected ashtrays
Auctions and picking blackcaps on State Land,
weeping willows,
and Grandma's Toro self-propelled mower
with electric start
4-H fairs, animals and apple pies,
my buddies working farms, cows and cow smell
caning chairs
and painting houses
Hiking the woods, up and down the hills and valleys
and forging the creeks in knee high rubber boots,
turning rocks for crawdaddies
and skipping rocks
Moonlight fishing for catfish, at the creek
with needle nose pliers, in case you buried the hook
and a coleman lantern and wire stringer
Crusin' girls, Plymouth Dusters,
Kevin Gehman, and "Bad Company"
on the 8-Track ... Miller Splits (6 oz) and
instant upchuck, blaring ... on the Sparkomatics
"Feel like making love" ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOFwfPL54aY
Girls, girls and more girls ... and dreaming of having one,
boobies and mini-shorts, shot down and making moves
lip gloss
and Wild Cherry, Play that funky music, White boy
Seger, "Working on the night moves".
And Di Salvo's Pizza and Sub shop,
swallowing goldfish,
won out of blue colored water
at the ping pong ball toss
looking for it later, when I tossed my cookies ...
hanging with the boys,
The Boys are back in town, and Thin Lizzy ...
Summer in New York, after battling the winter and endless spring funky rain and mud ...
was such a joy, to be in a t-shirt, or no shirt
enjoying youth and finding the fun ... before fall.
Ah yes, I remember (and miss) the summers in NY,
but moreso ... the youth and
freshness of each experience
that accompanied those summers
The more I get older,
the more I experience, rationalize, categorize and file away
The more I miss the aloof, non-caring, non-filing
spirit of youth
The thrill of the mystery, more important than the answer
the older generation, and their non-helpful non-answers
the pent up frustration, coupled with the infinite possiblities.
I miss the unknown,
comfortably, familiar and
predictibly safe feeling
of youth.