Summer Memories (the early years): Short-Shorts on a Theme

Mountain laurels thick as a jungle, we push through glossy green branches, searching for the sulphur springs. It’s an old-time resort turned church camp in the mountains of western Virginia, the air heavy and wet. We can drink straight from the stream, fresh water cold and living, but there’s this other water somewhere, piped from underground, famous enough that fancy people once came here to get healed. We’ve been newting, checking in the leaves for bright orange spotted bodies, little tame creatures we can hold in our hands and when it rains, columns of shin-deep water shoot along the gullies, warm and fast. We play as much in the rain as we do in the misty hot not-rain and everything we play is Explore. We adventure to a pond and I’m falling behind the rest when I come upon a coiled copperhead. I go running, lit by terror, faster than I’ve ever moved. I keep peeking behind me, convinced that it’s following me, slithering on my heels, ready to kill me dead and when it hasn’t, when I can’t breathe anymore and I’m safe, a wave of shame takes over. Maybe I made it all up. I can see the snake, burned in my mind, coiled and still. And I can still touch the panic, the strength of my legs, the doubt that comes after. In the woods, pushing back the branches, we doubted too. Why would once-famous springs be hidden like this? No path, not even the hint of one, all swallowed in the trees. But then we found it, a built rock fountain streaked with orange, swathed in moss. We're not not just Explorers now but Discoverers, touching the water that healed people a hundred years ago and then was forgotten by everybody but us.
    - Alison Coluccio

One summer evening — I was alone, as was the case so often. I thought stars were falling, and watched in amazement; then, growing bewilderment. As daylight dimmed and the sky darkened I woke up. Hundreds of fireflies outside my window pointed me toward doubt and the redemption of a formless reality. Last night, seeing only two fireflies outside another window I remembered; this morning, I begin to understand the message.
    - C. Robin Janning

We lived in a house with a pool for five years of my childhood. It was above ground, 4 feet deep and oval shaped with a shoddy wooden deck the previous owners had constructed on their own. After several harsh winters, the boards had warped creating painful tripping hazards. The deck was slippery when wet and splinters were common. Nails protruded. Bees nested below. We always warned guests to be careful on the janky deck. Injuries abounded, despite a strict “no running” rule. One could never fully let their guard down on our death trap of a pool deck. But I didn’t mind. I spent a lot of time in that pool entertaining myself. Goggles on, I’d take a deep breath and dive down to the bottom to examine the pebbly-looking liner in shades of blue and grey. I’d get as close as possible, staring intently, drifting by. It was quiet down there. Every now and then someone would lose an earring or a ring to the pool which would then blend in to the pattern of the liner making it difficult to find. This was always exciting to me. It would become my mission to dive down and comb the depths for the missing jewelry. I’d start close to the suspected drop site, then expand my search radius. I would look for a long time and then it seemed like someone else would inevitably swoop in and find the missing item immediately with fresh eyes while I was off in my own world: mesmerized by silence, pretty patterns, and dreams of glory. This usually ended a day of swimming. Exhausted from the hunt and saturated with chlorine, I’d leave the pool of hard knocks behind and return to solid ground and the familiar boredom of a summer afternoon.
    - J Kuonen

Ovaltine while Gramma pours her coffee. I watch her put her face into the steam and I do the same. We are best friends. I want to be just like her when I grow up. Today we will have sweet rolls. They are almost done baking in the wood stove. The kitchen smells of cinnamon and growing things from Grandpa’s garden. The sun turns everything yellow and happy. We keep talking and I listen to Gramma laugh. She likes to laugh. On other mornings, Gramma puts me in charge of the toaster. It is the old-fashioned kind with doors. She teaches me how to turn the bread without burning myself. It’s very tricky but Gramma says that I’m old enough. Next year I’ll be in kindergarten. (I’m pretty sure I’m her favorite.)
    - Jo Balistreri

After church on Sundays, we teenage girls were flushed with money from our part-time jobs. We would meet in front of the candy store wearing our Saturday clothes. We stood grasping towels and bags of sandwiches with wads of money in our pockets. Maybe two dollars each! This was grungiest Brooklyn as we headed to Coney Island. A long subway ride and in-depth discussion of last night’s party passed quickly. Finally we were greeted by salty ocean air as an old blanket was put down to avoid lying on the hot sand. As soon as we arrived, I stripped down to my bathing suit to rush into the water. I loved going past the second set of waves out to the wonderful calm ocean. My two friends fussed over the blanket claiming three gorgeous guys had stopped by. One of them was very tall. I dried off, ate a sandwich and left to soak up the waves again. When I got back, they were bored and admitted gorgeous guys were just mirages. Time to check out the boardwalk and all the amusement rides we could afford. The bumper cars were our favorites as we crashed into each other. The cyclone was a must. With no money left, we paraded up and down the boardwalk, peering into dusty, cool arcades. It was getting late, time for a sleepy ride back on the subway again. Have to go home, take a shower, get all set for the week ahead. Soon I would dream of riding waves with gorgeous guys.
    - Joan McNerney

All the stories of my childhood begin with my father. How could it be otherwise. He was a poet, my hero, and life with him was always a treasure hunt and a laughing fest. There are many little stories contained in the one big story. Little unforgettable stories, like how he looked in the fridge and said it looked like an elephant opened the bread. That was me. That was my style, and his way of responding. So charming. And how he shook the glass under the cold water faucet and made the water taste better than anyone else ever could. All these things made the Big Summer Story better . . . or worse! Independence Day turned into a mystery. It was the summer before college. I was eighteen. The neighborhood party was about to start. I could smell the food cooking on the outdoor grills, and hear firecrackers. I saw the open door and his suitcase in the hall. He left suddenly . . . leaving my loving mom, and the five of us children. He was just gone. After my first year in college I married the one high school boyfriend of mine that my father had liked, and I had my first child when I just turned twenty.
    - Kath Abela Wilson

The Susquehanna River is where we are expected to learn to swim. No contained pool with turquoise-painted walls. No smoothly-paved pool deck. Instead, a rocky bank, a riot of weeds, and a wide expanse of mysterious, moving water. We stand at the edge, barefoot and goose-pimpled, and stare at our goal, the bank on the other side. The river glares back at us, daring us to step into its secret eddies, to feel with little toes for its unseen bottom. We don’t even glance at each other. This is a solitary quest, a rite of passage. We each have to go it alone. Or so we think. Then we see our father, stroking strongly against the current. He glides into the shallows and smiles. “All aboard,” he calls. As the eldest, I know it is up to me to go first, so I step gingerly into the water and climb onto his back, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Not too tight,” he cautions, and I relax my arms a little. He launches us forward then and strikes off for the other side, over the deep part. I rest my chin on his head, dark and wet like a seal’s. The rhythm of his strokes, the sun glinting off the river’s surface, the splash of drops as he reaches forward again and again—all together, a waking dream. And I might have dozed if not for the excitement, the uncertainty, of the other side, coming closer and closer now. But he doesn’t leave me there. Instead, he turns smoothly, and swims back, over the deep part again, while my little brothers and sister dance on the bank, waving.
    - Kathleen Kramer

It was the magical summer of my fifteenth year. I had finally gotten rid of my “coke-bottle” glasses and was wearing contact lenses. I flew to my grandparents’ cottage on a lake outside of Detroit, where a group of their “progressive” (read socialist) friends had built summer cottages way back when, and I knew most of the people who would be summering there. This included a gaggle of teens, who I had reunited with summer after summer. I had a sleek new bathing suit that looked like tiger-skin, nicely displaying my curves, and I was in the prime of young womanhood. A young man came out to the lake to visit a friend, and he only had eyes for me. I had my very first passionate kiss under a full moon, with a white swan placidly gliding on the lake, as I sat embracing Steve under the willow trees. He kissed me again and again, while the frogs were making their music. The whole summer went on that way. Steve came to the lake as often as he could, and when he wasn’t there, I flirted with the others who were willing to be second-best. There were no cell phones back then, and I don’t have a single picture of that mythic summer, but it is emblazoned in my memory, Steve’s dark eyes gazing deeply into mine, no longer hidden behind panes of glass. The lake cottages are mostly year-round houses now, and I haven’t been there in years, but my cousin tells me there are still swans on the lake. Steve went on to become a tennis star, before we lost touch.
    - Katya Sabaroff Taylor

The best thing about summertime was playing softball. I lived for it and took it very seriously. I hated school and couldn’t wait for it to end so I could get down to some interesting activities once our city field opened up for us. There was only one girls team, our town was so small, but we were good. We practiced twice a week and also played two weekly games against nearby towns. We traveled around southwestern Kansas to tournaments and sometimes brought home trophies. I was a runty kid, I was told. I didn’t agree and focussed in to make a better name for myself somehow. I was only seven when I started with the team and was stuck in right field for the first few seasons. I didn’t care that I seldom got a ball hit to me. I still paid attention to every play and taught myself to think about who I should throw the ball back to, if it ever did come my way. I graduated to centerfield when I was nine years old. And that’s where I stayed through my senior year in high school in 1965. Metal bats didn’t exist back then. We only used wooden bats and I learned how to listen closely to the sound of the ball connecting with the bat. It gave me a slight head start in the right direction — especially when it was a hard crack. I would start running toward the sound and often that made a difference in the catch. My favorite thing in the universe was to grab that ball out of the air and feel it lock into the pocket of my glove. And if a runner had assumed the ball wouldn’t be caught and got halfway to the next base, a good throw from me would give my team a second out to add to my catch. What sheer victory for this most excellent runt of a girl.
    - Marty Blue Waters

Childhood summers always started on Memorial Day, when we invited the neighborhood kids over to help clean out the pool behind our garage where we would all subsequently spend our barefoot days. A hand-dug, concrete-walled construction a yard above the ground, as long as the
garage, maybe ten feet wide, and four-to-eight feet deep, this pool had neither drain nor filter. We'd siphon the water out every year at summer's end, but over the winter it would get enough rain to raise families of frogs and algae, and collect wind-blown plant parts which all had to be cleared away before we could fill it again. Sorensons, Morans, Taylors, Bairds, Fitzgeralds, and Follansbees would arrive after breakfast, ready to scoop out the water with sardine tins flattened on one side and take it away in bucket brigades, hand-to-hand. The green algae scent arose as we scrubbed the smooth concrete with stiff brooms and brushes, then hosed it all down to the deep end, thumbs tucked over the nozzle for spraying. Water fights were ubiquitous but we all wore bathing suits, and hosed ourselves off when we were finished. Happily exhausted, our efforts rewarded with barbecued hot dogs, colas, and ice cream, we lounged in the backyard butterfly chairs while my father started running water into the pool from the nearest spigot. All night you could hear the water snaking past the garage, slithering into the pool. Seeping into my dreams. The next day, summer officially began — with a splash!
    - Mimi Foyle

Wet skin on sun-baked pavement. Steam rising from each cheek, pressed in turn against the scratchy hot surface. Seared and scorched, running between the house and the church to cool, shaded, pool-blue water. Sitting on the curb. Shoes and socks off. Sticking toes in hot tar bubbles. Hiding in the neighbor’s tall grass, distracted by clouds and cooling summer breeze, the shouts of “olly olly oxen free” don’t lure me back to the game. Thick, humid West Virginia summers. Tin Can Ally, Kickball and Hide and Seek move me through the suffocating air. Bologna and mustard sandwiches on the back porch with too-tart lemonade and fresh peaches. Red, blistered skin scraping against tangled sheets. Drying sweat on my neck and hair provide small comfort. Jumping from the swing at the highest point. Arms raised in flight, coasting on my bike down the steep Vermont Street hill. Racing the fastest boy on the block for a little power. Propelling myself out and away from the porch onto the hard pavement for a moment of freedom. Summer evenings on trampoline beds, the sweet pause of weightlessness in mid-air. Spitting watermelon seeds from the back porch of my grandmother’s house. Dreaming of the watermelon patch that would grow. Six of us, each taking turns cranking the barrel of the ice cream maker to earn a precious, sweet spoonful. Lazy afternoons, reading on the cool living room floor, lost in The Boxcar Children, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Wind in the Willows.
    - MJ Richmond

Our family never had summer vacations at the beach when my siblings and I were young. But for some reason my mother always bought a beach ball for us at the start of the summer. It came in a small package, folded up. Flattened out before inflating you could see the brightly-colored segments, like the segments of a peeled orange: white, red, yellow, green, blue, orange. Unrolling it always released that oh so familiar smell: beach ball plastic. We always tried blowing it up ourselves, but we didn't have the breath for it. So it was my father's task to inflate it. Even after it had turned into an almost lighter-than-air ball you could still smell that plastic smell. By late summer we were bored with the ball and tired of having to ask for it to be reinflated. By the time we returned to school it was forgotten in some corner of the porch, flat and spattered with dirt from the yard, quietly exhaling the last scent of summer.
    - Nancy Osborn

I still feel the smooth, cream-colored carpet, the sage-green satin drapes and transparent curtains that hid the street and kept out Atlanta's summer heat. Smell the faint scent of mildew and damp at the back of the house where we slept on cots and polyester sheets. Hear the katydids arguing endlessly all night, and the calm hermit thrush and towhees in the cool, misty morning. I hear my grandmother’s burbling, nonsensical chatter and soft, southern drawl, calling us “Sugar” and asking us to go with her to Sunday School. She was a tiny bird, pencil-thin, with translucent white skin and pale red curled hair. She wore thick, beige hose under floral print crepe dresses and soaked her arthritic hands in hot paraffin. There was a whisper of undergarments as she moved. She talked almost incessantly in a high, soft, and happy voice that drove my father crazy. If Grandmother was a bird, Grandfather was a tree. I knew that he loved me from the glint of his gold-capped teeth and the way he lifted me above his head, just that once when I was very small. They both wore thick glasses that hid their expressions but I felt my grandmother’s longing for us three girls, despite our Yankee lack of southern charm or manners. She showed us a wooden box of toys in the attic, a hot, dusty space under the peaked roof. The best toy in it was a little girl doll with a glazed ceramic head attached to a wooden body clothed in a faded and stained petticoat. Her lips were red, paled by age and handling. Even her hair was ceramic, a curled bob chipped by handling and play. I so wanted to keep the doll, but the answer was no.
    - Patti Witten

Remember the summer we were 17 and we were working at Peacock’s packing sardines? Eugene Greenlaw was our supervisor. We would often take the afternoon off to go to Gardner’s Lake. The summer I started going out with Dana. Eugene would be disappointed in us if we didn’t come back after lunch. It was hard to work when the weather was good. I had mom’s Dodge Dart that summer. Dana had to cut a pair of jeans into shorts to go swimming. I remember waiting outside his house for a long time wondering what was taking so long until he came out with the cutoffs. We were so young. And, I had Amy there that summer, too, and she was only three, so I had to be careful not to get into trouble with Mary and Alvin for skipping out of work to go off with friends. We worked on our tans at the lake and the water felt so good; I always felt clean after we went swimming. The future seemed like it was waiting especially for us. That was also the summer Eddie Rier and you took mom’s car to get more beer for the party and the cops stopped you because you were driving too slowly, without a license. You never did get your license.
    - Peggy Stevens

When I smell gardenias I think of my first kiss, the summer before ninth grade. I met Dwight Harris at band camp and when I got home he called me up to see if he could ride his bike over to see me. We hung out in our back yard. I remember that the gardenias were ripe with scent and that Dwight suddenly leaned forward awkwardly and kissed me on the lips. His lips were cold and slimy. It was disgusting and I was sure I would never want to kiss anyone on the lips ever again. And I didn't, until I shared a seat with Ozzie Smithwick on the band bus to the first out-of town football game later that August. It was dark and quiet on the bus on the way home. We leaned in to each other and kissed — my second kiss — warm and smooth and dreamy. I changed my mind about kissing.
    - Reba Dolch

It was summer camp in the Catskills, and we were having our “color war,” which was a competition organized by the counselors, lasting several days among several groups of boys. There were many activities on the agenda, but the one I remember was the swim meet, because I came from behind and won by one stroke for our team, The Warriors. I was awarded the team banner, a large painted sheet, and I proudly hung it on my basement wall at home, flanking our ping pong table. I was often reminded of what I had done for our team, interestingly spelled on the banner: “The Worriers.”
    - Richie Holtz

My sixth summer is filled with visitors, human and otherwise. Cousins Tim and Nancy have come to visit with their parents. On the Fourth of July, we settle down in the front yard to watch fireworks. During the grand finale, something dashes by, flies under a car. Tim, intrigued, finds a tiny kitten huddled behind one of the wheels, shivering and scared. We name her "Mouse" for her diminutive size and soft gray fur and keep her in the playhouse out back, offering her saucers of milk and table scraps. For two weeks, she survives but never gets much bigger. Her striking blue eyes stare through us. They almost match Nancy's. The day after my relatives drive off, headed back to Texas, Mouse is nowhere to be found. I miss the wisp of a kitten and her cerulean eyes.
    - Theresa A. Cancro

It was a long time ago that the radio warned of possible tornados. On our upstate New York dairy farm that hot summer day I had to take a long walk down the road and then up into the hill pasture to bring the cows in a big semi-circle back to the barn for milking, through the sticky mud hole near the frog pond and down the rocky lane. I was 7. Mom was afraid of the weather — was Dad away? So she made me wear a yellow rain slicker complete with stiff pants and with kind of a pointy hood, way too hot, stifling, but it was the best she could do to calm her fears. When the little herd of cows saw me in that get-up, they panicked, raising their tails and running like crazy, stampeding all the way to the barn. I laughed an awful lot for someone alone in a field but then I dutifully trudged on, wearing the rain suit all the way home.
    - Tina Wright

We drove to the Catskills every summer. My father was an angry driver and yelled 'bastard' out the window to the other drivers. We stayed at the Palace Hotel where all the mothers cooked for their families in the huge communal kitchen. I ran around with the other kids and played in the grass. I felt wild and free. My mother played Canasta, a card game, on the porch with her friends all day. All the fathers drove back to the City to work and came up on weekends.
The other kids and I walked into town to buy penny candy every afternoon. So many different candies. My favorite was the fireball. It got so hot in my mouth that I had to take it out and hold it in my hand until my mouth wasn't so hot anymore. It was like an adventure. There was a young boy selling the candy in the small grocery store. He was different than we were. We were all Jewish from European families and we lived in NYC. This boy lived in Fleischmanns all year round and had dark skin. When I bought my candy I would look at him and he would look at me. I felt something I never felt before. It made me nervous and curious. Nothing ever happened but I never forgot those first feelings, that first look. Somehow, it made me feel like life was filled with excitement and possibility beyond what I could even imagine. That simple exchange was a kind of awakening in those lazy summer days in the Catskills before I knew anything about life and the world.
    - Yvonne Fisher

I’m fifteen, spending two months in the mountains in something called a Work Camp, where I learn how to build cabins. These are meant to be useful skills — using a saw, hammering, painting — but of course after that summer I never do any of those things again. The entire group of us work-campers, about a dozen, drive to the Newport Folk Festival in a VW van. We become instant Richie Havens groupies. I buy a button from a hippie with the car-rental slogan We Try Harder printed in red on a white background. I consider it every bit as profound as that Zen koan about one hand clapping. I wear it all over Newport and every day after, for the rest of the summer, on the collar of my denim work-shirt. When I go home at the end of August my mother throws them both out — the work-shirt and the button. It takes me a couple of days before I realize they’re gone but when I do I throw a very loud and self-righteous fit: “How could you do that to my property, it was my private property, don’t you have any respect for private property?” To which my mother replies, “It was garbage.” “But it was my garbage,” I say. “I didn’t realize you were so bourgeois,” she says. That shuts me up.
    - Zee Zahava