endless summer

If the heat is any indication...Summer has definitely arrived. It's funny how a season can make you remember certain times in your life with exact certainty...right down to the smell...the cold air from a window unit...the croaking frogs and cicadas. It's a time I vividly remember being at my grandparent's home. I would spend weeks playing in my grandmother's Mary Kay stash, sinking my feet into the thick green grass in the yard, picking worms off a Catawba tree for my grandfather to use as fishing bait, digging in the sandy dirt that filled their south Alabama yard, plundering through my grandfather's "junk drawer" for some unknown buried treasure...visiting my grandfather at work and on the occasion my grandmother had to work, I would spend the day with my great-grandmother. Days with her were spent much the same way, although I do credit her with launching my night time television habit! Hours were logged working the antenna...you know, the old fashioned kind that you cranked on a 1950's era dial that would magically send a signal to the roof to allow Night Court to come in perfectly clear. And the day hours were logged digging in the sandy dirt until I could no longer take the heat...upon which my great-grandmother would sit out her largest metal washtub under the large cedar tree in the...yes, front yard...where I would sit in my underwear...in my miniature pool for hours as an occasional car would pass by. Granted, she lived in the country so there weren't too many cars and, this type "pool" set up was somewhat accepted as the norm...thank goodness. Then there were the days I would play until the sun was tired and I would breeze into the kitchen...climb up onto the washing machine and inhale the icy cold air from the window unit. I can still feel it on my face like it was yesterday. Later, I would fill my belly with oyster stew and crawl into bed to do it all again the next day. I miss those days. I miss that I didn't know then how lucky I was to be spending precious time...creating unsurpassed memories with my grandparents and great-grandparents. But, I guess that's just the thing...when you're a kid, the seasons come and go and all we really live for is summer...and in turn...as adults, those summers live on in our hearts forever.

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