Friday, October 7, 2022

Flashes of Summers Forever Gone

 

Not only does the beginning of October signal the absolute end of summerlikeness and the beginning of the acceptivity of pumpkin spice-osity*, this time around the sun, I have been having flashbacks of scenes from summers in my personal past that have an extremely high likelihood of never being repeated.


  • Stretching out on my back in the grass while a kitten stretches out on my belly
  • Riding my bike around the countryside for hours with no helmet or shade-providing hat of any kind, no sunscreen, no water supply, and positively no supervision
  • Coming home from a hard day's ride with a streak of tar splattered up the back of my white t-shirt
  • Whiling away hours under a bridge, looking for frogs and tossing rocks in the "crick"
  • Arranging bales in the hayloft to create two opposing castles
  • Finding my brother's copy of The Naked Ape in said hayloft
  • Reading the passing billboards while lying on my stomach in the over-the-cab bed of our camper.


  • FlatulenceKing waking up early and driving us several miles further down the road while everyone else was still asleep.
  • The bone-shocking difference between the cut-it-with-a-knife humidity outside and the meat-locker cold inside at my aunt and uncle's home in Orlando.
  • Igniting farts in the driveway of that home with my brother and brother-in-law.
  • Seeing our Illinois cousins once a year and being expected to behave as if We Missed Each Other So Much
  • Feeling like summer was never going to end

_______
* He said, knowing full well that some flotsam of humanity have been pumpkining it to high heaven since the end of August, like Marty McFly Pete Townsending all up in the face of stunned teenagers in the Fifties.



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