Whatever happened to Summer?
So. its Summer. I just can’t get excited these days. I’ve been snookered too many times. Summer just means scorching heat and kids playing in the street. Maybe there is still magic in Summer for some people but I’m past it.
Summer is a tramp, full of promises and bad at delivering. As a kid, I was a sucker for the dream. I lived each year for the promise and then made excuses when they never came through. Anything could happen. Sadly it mostly didn’t. These days I don’t expect much. I just hunker down and get through it.
It is hard to like Summer. It promises great things but never really delivers. When I was a kid, it’s big attraction was that there was no school. Aside from that. Summer meant high temperatures and insufferable humidity. It meant hot sticky nights, trying to sleep with the sheets sticking to your body and bugs, lots of bugs, Noisy annoying annoying bugs like June bugs were bad enough but the grass was full of chiggers and the evenings brought mosquitoes which left you with painful itches and welts. The only bugs I liked were lighting bugs which sadly I never see in California. Summer fantasies were about bikini clad lovelies on sandy beaches. If you were in the landlocked Midwest, these were only fantasies because all you had were swimming pools or the lake and somehow it was just never beach blanket bingo or even Gidget. The reality was just never as good as the fantasy.
That was what Summer meant when I was a kid- a big promise which left you empty when it finally ended. These days I don’t expect much from Summer. Chicks in bikinis on sandy beaches don’t have the allure these days. Every body has air conditioning. These days you can just ignore Summer all together. Hire somebody to mow the grass. Stay inside and avoid the bugs.
Ralph, sometimes I worry about you. Chicks in bikinis don’t get you worked up anymore?
I was riding with my ex-father-in-law once. He was in his mid-60’s and he damn near wrecked while breaking his neck looking at a hot gal. He caught me staring at him and said, “Bob, I’m married, and I’m old…but I ain’t dead.”
I like his outlook on the subject.
Bob,
They all look twelve. Even knowing that Sally Field sells bone meds these days doesn’t help. Now Sophia Loren is different.
Summer is still great for me. Warm days, everything growing, fishing and fun. I’ll pass on Gidget and the beach blanket bingo stuff. It was pretty lame even in the 60’s.
Hansi,
I supposed growing up in LA and all that Gidget, Beach Blanket Bingo and my heart throb Annette were just your ordinary existence.
Sally Field appeared on my radar screen about the same time as Burt Reynolds. That makes me old… but not as old you codgers. Heh.
Dave that’s interesting! It took you ten years to notice Sally Field but you picked up Burt Reynolds on day one? And you were a Marine? Makin’ me wonder.
Uh, no. Try, “in high school watching movies cut for TV” instead.
I had a crush on a girl in my class who looked a lot like Sallie Field.
Whatever you say Dave. Whatever you say.
Honestly, I don’t agree with you, I think that summer is the best of all seasons, you are able to go on vacation, the kids don’t need to go to school, I can spend a lot of time with them, the weather is beautiful as well… So why is so hard to like summer?
Vera,
I’m happy for you. It’s good to know that summer still delivers on it’s promise for somebody.