Beach Boy Summers

I've always wanted a "Beach Boys" summer. Not that I've ever had a hankering to hit the waves, or bake on the beach in my plaid bikini. I think I just want to be something other than hot, sticky, besieged by mosquitoes and lethargic during what is supposed to be the most glorious time of the year.

Most people seem to love summer. Farmer's Markets! Bountiful Gardens! Grilling and Cold Beers on the Patio! County Fairs! Vacations at (take your pick) the family beach house, the family lake house, the family cabin in the woods, the family mountain chateau!

I was invited once, many years ago, to a weekend graduation party at a "family beach house" on Lake Erie. The house was huge and beautiful and almost literally on the lake. It was decorated in the way that vacation homes seem to be -- that sort of "haphazard-on-purpose" look that included lots of old paperback summer novels and well-worn board games and straw hats and old oars and fishing gear hanging about. At night, we slept with the windows open -- no air conditioning needed -- and the breezes from the lake, and the sounds of the waves lapping up against the beach lulled us to sleep. "I could spend my whole life here", I thought. "I could die here". Thankfully, I didn't.

Growing up, my summers did not include farmer's markets! bountiful gardens! country fairs! grilling and cold beers on the patio! or any vacations at all (except one summer when my dad had saved money so that we could all take a Greyhound bus to Colorado to visit his sister!). I didn't spend my summers at a woodsy camp with an Indian name, or take long road trips in a paneled station wagon (we didn't own a car).

What I remember most about my childhood summers was the sense of freedom all of us neighborhood kids seemed to share. School was out, we had nowhere we had to be, nothing we had to do. None of the kids I grew up with went to summer camp. Most of us didn't have lake or beach houses. Though we lived in the land of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, we didn't run through the woods or build rafts -- we were city kids, and we ran the streets and alleys. We swam in big galvanized tin pools (affectionately called "hoosier hot-tubs" in these parts) in friends' backyards, we played in basements, some days we practically lived in our swimming suits. Adults appeared only to offer us kool-aid and popcorn, or slices of watermelon, or to call us home if the street lights had come on and we were still out in the streets, playing SPUD. Days were hot and humid, mosquitoes had their way with our little tanned limbs, but we didn't care -- we were too busy chasing balls down the alley, riding bikes, making up stories, and playing dress-up to notice.

Maybe that's what I'm missing about summer these days -- the playfulness, the fun, the freedom. Take those things out of the equation and for me, summer is mostly the hot, humid, uncomfortable days you have to get through until you can make it to fall. And that's kind of too bad. I think I'm going to have to find a way to make next summer a "Beach Boy" summer.