A Lesson Learned In Summer
by Billy Burrew
Everyone has fond remembrances of the
summertimes of their youth. Of the fun, frolicsome terpsichore
of those summers of long ago. I was reminded of those summers
the other day when, sometime during the afternoon, a summer
thunderstorm rolled in and it began to rain. The front desk
operator announced over the PA that it was starting to rain
so that anyone with their windows down should get out to
their car and put them up. As I had left my sunroof partially
open, I saved what I was working on, grabbed my keys and
headed downstairs and outside to the parking lot. Unfortunately,
what started out as a light sprinkle had quickly turned
into a bonafide frog-strangler and by the time I reached
my car I was more than a little wet. I got into my car,
closed the sunroof and then decided to stay put see if the
storm would fade out.
As I sat there,
I began to curse the storm and my damp condition, then I
stopped, looked around and began to think. I sat there thinking
for some time, remembering when running around outside in
the rain used to be a lot of fun. I began to think of a
great number of things that used to be fun, things I did
when I was a kid, that today, I wouldn't do on a bet. So,
Sitting there, looking at the raindrops pattering on the
glass sunroof overhead, I was suddenly overcome with a feeling
of melancholy as I suddenly realized that my life had become
a lot less fun than when I was a kid... and that I had become
a lot less fun over the years. Needless to say, this sudden
realization did little to improve my mood.
I began to think
about all the fun stuff I used to do back in those days,
like wading in the creek (pronounced crick, if you grew
up in western PA) and looking for crayfish under the rocks,
making mud pies and putting them out to dry on the support
beams of the bridge that bordered our house. Things like
playing hide and go seek in the dark, climbing trees, and
catching lightning bugs in old planter's peanut bottles
with holes poked in the lid.
I remembered
sitting on the back porch with grandma, playing endless
games of gin, playing checkers against grandpa and getting
angry every time as he kicked my ass. Learning how to play
cribbage and being so happy the first time I skunked Dad.
Now, of course, that's a regular occurrence, but still enjoyable,
nonetheless. Learning to play Pollyanna, and being taught
patience and strategy as I moved my 4 game pieces around
the board, trying to avoid getting sent home by either Grandma,
Grandpa or by throwing 3 doubles in a row on the dice.
I remembered
learning to swim at Idlewild Park (before it got big and
commercial), getting a season pass and spending summers
at Nick Gallo's Ligonier Beach swimming in what amounted
to chlorinated creek (pronounced crick) water. Going out
with the rest of the family to drive-in movies in the station
wagon and laying in the back deck.Going out for those incredibly
tall soft serve ice creams at McCoy's. I remembered sitting
on Grandma's back porch and watching in awe as grandpa made
a enormous bullwhip out of the bark of a small tree and
then whirled it around his head and cracked it, making a
sound like a gunshot. I remembered going on trips to the
old railroad tracks at the far end of the the field behind
our house and exploring the coal mine's coke ovens and fishing
in the creek (pronounced crick) next to our house with white
bread and cheese as bait. Taking bike rides up Marietta
Road, visiting with Mrs. Morrow, who, as I recall, wouldn't
go upstairs into her house after seeing a snake and thus
confined herself to the one room near the front of her house
for probably the rest of her life. I remembered Mom and
our neighbor Denny standing on the back deck, rifles in
hand, shooting at the snakes in our creek(pronounced crick.)
I remembered looking forward to visits from our Michigan
relatives, like Uncle Ron, Aunt Joyce, Uncle Norb and Aunt
Lori, cousins Scott and Christopher (who during one visit,
would only eat pizza.)
I remembered
the many, many times we had to rebuild or relocate our wooden
bridge when it would get destroyed or moved far downstream
when the creek (pronounced crick) flooded. I remembered
taking branch cutters and cutting off sticks from the apple
and cherry trees to roast marshmallows when we cooked out.
I remembered our old garden, and how we'd get a ton of tomatoes
and lettuce out of it each year. I remembered the year that
mom planted rhubarb and we made bottles and bottles of rhubarb
jelly. Picking bowls of lettuce from the garden and watching
as Grandma made <<hlávkový a slanina>>
(I believe this is the correct translation, though how we
ever arrived at calling it "squawkie and shelata",
I'll probably never know.) Of course, the best part of this
memory is the look on my sisters faces as they forced themselves
to swallow the grey, dressing coated lettuce leaves whole.
I remembered going to the "Gay 90's" Dairy Queen
in town and getting Mister Mistys and Blizzards (back when
they first came out!) Or buying Swedish fish, Jolly Rancher
sticks and red licorice strings from Heavenly Foods in Ligonier
before heading out to the pool.
I remembered
going to the Orthodox church that was next door to the Cella's
house in Wilpen for the bazaar they held every summer, watching
grandma play 8 bingo cards at once and learning at an early
age the fun and intrigue of gambling. I remember the Waterford
Carnival; we'd go on Saturday and stay to see the fireworks.
One year Dad won me Pengie, the stuffed penguin that I slept
with for ages, back when I slept with stuffed animals to
keep away the monsters that resided under my bed. Speaking
of my beds, I remember chewing my way through the toddler
bed bars one night and going out to the dining room, grabbing
a chair and dragging it over to boost myself up so I could
unlocked the front door chain. Then I carefully put the
chair back and clicked the lock on the door behind me as
I closed it and headed up the hill to sleep over at Grandma's.
I can only imagine how freaked out mom and dad were the
next morning when they saw the bars chewed through and me
long gone.Yeah, I liked to keep 'em on their toes.
I remembered
going to the Ligonier library and checking out books, first
reading all the Hardy Boys mysteries and learning the value
of deductive reasoning then reading all the Nancy Drew mysteries
and learning the importance of always having a spare sweater
and wearing sensible shoes. (If that wasn't a clear sign
of things to come, I don't know what was!) I remembered
when Mom worked part time at that pizza place in town and
we'd get pizza a few times a week. I remembered the first
video game I played, Frogger, and how totally awesome I
thought it was (and still do!) I remembered hanging around
downstairs in the much cooler gameroom when the summer temperatures
outside got too hot, watching the black and white TV, playing
the Titanic or Six Million Dollar Man board games we had
and napping on that big orange vinyl double sized recliner
(which I would totally LOVE to have today, it would be so
retro and groovy.) I remembered the Ouija board incident
and Aza O' Malley, our ghostly contact in the world beyond
and the multitude of spirits that partied in the gameroom
area.
I remembered
all the dogs I had growing up, from K.C., the most awesome
and patient schnauzer of all time, who didn't even freak
out when I put him on the old sewing machine manual footpetal
and got it going really fast. Pal, the golden lab, the main
player in the now infamous fishing hook through the finger
incident wherein I punched and kicked a staggering amount
of doctors and nurses until they could finally hold me down
and pull the fishing hook out of my finger. I remember Laddy,
the counter-surfing black Labrador from whom no stick of
butter was ever safe. Cuddles, the evil tempered Chihuahua.
Porky, who almost got called Sarge, but got re-named when
we saw his tail curl up like a pig's tail. Along about the
same time we got Porky, we also got Ebony, a poor abused
poodle we got one night when Dad and our neighbor Denny
had a few beers and decided to go to the animal shelter
to get Denny's daughter Michelle a dog. They found two,
adopting Ebony for us and her daughter Snowball for Michelle.
I remembered
the family vacations to Virginia Beach and Cape May, NJ.
Dad and I had gone deep sea fishing on pre-stormy, choppy
waters and incidentally discovered that Dunkin' Donuts taste
a whole lot better goin' down than they do comin' back up.
We watched (with semi-malicious glee) that poor schmuck
sitting near the back of the boat who was so seasick; his
wife just kept feeding him and he'd keep getting sick and
she'd keep on feeding him and start the process over again.
The time I drove with Kathy to Virginia Beach in her first
car, a red Chevy Cavalier sedan. We must have listened to
the soundtrack from "The Lost Boys" 20 times before
switching off to Def Leppard and belting out "Pour
Some Sugar on Me" over and over again 'til we were
nearly hoarse. At that time, Kathy was scared of big bridges
(and big trucks) and kept the air-conditioning turned up
really high to keep her alert. At one point, it was so cold
inside the car that the front and side windows began to
frost over. Ironically enough, Kathy's first accident occurred
during that trip, in an area that had a less than 15 mph
speed limit. Yes, danger prone Daphne...er...Kathy got her
brand new car creamed in a parking lot in Virginia Beach,
of all places. Unlike my mother's automobile accident, the
lady that hit Kathy going 35 mph throught a parking lot
had both her arms so it wasn't nearly as humorous.
So, there I sat
in my car, overly moist and melancholy. I began to reflect
back on the many times when I was young that I wished to
be all grown up so that I could have stayed up and done
the cool things the grown ups were going to do after we
were all put to bed. Now, having been a grown-up for some
time, I can only wonder what the heck I was thinking? Staying
up late isn't all that great and, aside from drinking, grown
ups don't do much that is really all that fun. Even drinking
has diminishing returns, seeing as how overexcess of alcohol
will leave you, at worst, doing a Technicolor yodel down
a porcelain wishing well, or at best, so hungover, sick
and sore that you wish you were dead, buried in your little
purple suit with the little purple hat. (Ask Kathy and she
might tell you all about the fabulous purple funeral outfit
and the not-so-fabulous hangover. Alternately, James, I
still have the audio tape somewhere and would gladly sell
it to you so you can really hear Kathy at her best.)
No, being grown
up isn't nearly the fabulous existence I had it in my mind
as being when I was a kid. So I take it as my sacred duty
as an Uncle and a perhaps soon to be Godfather to tell all
the youngsters out there to stay young and for godsakes
enjoy it! Sponge off your parents 'til the last possible
minute! There's no shame in that! Being a grownup is a major
drag and you should avoid it at all costs.
But, when you
do finally do decide to give up the ghost and grow up, stay
young inside and let your inner kid out as often as you
can. Don't let the pressures and stresses of day to day
living suck the fun, the spirit, the inner kid out of you.
Heck, do what I did. As I looked up through the glass sunroof
of my car, the rain began to get worse and I so opened the
door and got right back into the middle of it. I got completely
soaked and instead of getting mad, I began to laugh and
laugh and then it dawned on me why it used to be fun to
do in the first place.
See, I've decided
it's not too late for me. My inner kid is still in there;
I just need to let him out more often. I kind of think we
all need to do that, whether we know it or not.
