| brucekluger.com |
Arrive Magazine, July-August 2003 Final Stop: Seasons in the Sun Remembering those lazy, hazy—and downright indelible—days of summer. By Bruce Kluger
Finneran writes lovingly of her childhood summers in St. Louis, at one point summoning up those special evenings when the family would pile into the car and head off to the drive-in movie theater. “The sound of the gravel beneath the tires made arriving seem ceremonial,” Finneran recalls. “We brought our pillows with us, and my father let us take off our shirts and lie on the hood of the car, with our backs propped up against the windshield. It felt as if we were lying together in bed.” Like Finneran, I’ve discovered that the yearly arrival of the June solstice tugs at a part me long past but not forgotten. To me, summer will always be a collection of sights and smells; the sounds of crickets in the night, or the feel of sitting in an open convertible, the wind cutting through my hair as Brandy by Looking Glass, crackled over the AM dial. Although Summer 2003 promises the usual wave of Shakespeare festivals, Lallapaloozas and crafts fairs throughout the country, I will once again pass the season dwelling on those simpler, sweeter joys of summers long ago. Like bike riding until sundown. In my neighborhood, Daylight Savings Time transformed after-dinner activity from a diversion into a destination. Nightfall fell into those magic hours, in which time would suspend for as long as we could pedal. Like a rolling, rollicking battalion, the boys on our block would gather at the school parking lot at five-thirty—our desserts still fresh on our lips—then, once assembled, tear off into the unknown, careening through the crisscross of our suburban streets with all the familiarity of jackrabbits bounding through the brush. The setting sun never phased us, for this was the one time of the year when we were not expected home until the burnt red of dusk had lazily dimmed to black. For me, summer was also the season of outdoor concerts. Unlike the clamorous bashes in smoky arenas to which we flocked the rest of the year, these events were more like communions, in which song and sky conspired to create an enchanting soundtrack designed especially for us. I’ll never forget attending the James Taylor concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, when I was 16. My brother and his cool friends sat in the fancy amphitheater seats; my motley pack and I sprawled on the lawn in the back. And yet afterward, all of us noted that we’d been caught up in the very same moment: when Taylor, having waited for the sky to turn navy, began singing You’ve Got a Friend. A small cheer had erupted during the first strains, but then quickly subsided, as everyone—young and old—sang along beneath the stars. Summer was a time of catching fire flies on the front lawn, then camping out in the back. My brothers and I frequently tried to make it through the night, but we never seemed to go the distance, as the evening chill and a mysterious sound or two from the shrubs sent us darting back to the warmth and safety of our bedrooms. Summer was writing postcards from camp, growing an inch or two taller, and, for the first time in life, understanding that friendships were as precious and fleeting as the balmy days themselves. And, of course, nothing in my life has ever left quite so indelible a mark as summer love. Was it really 27 years ago that I strolled along the James River in Williamsburg, Virginia, holding Johanna’s hand and wondering what the butterflies in my stomach were all about? Did I know at the time—did she?—that we were simply adding another page to a scrapbook of memories to which we’d wistfully, gratefully, return for the rest of our days? (Illustration by Jonathan Carlson) |
