When summer in the metro-east was still summer
This summer, I’m hoping to run into my old friend, Summer.
You remember Summer, don’t you?
Summer was spontaneous, adventurous, innocent, informal, carefree, incredibly hot and humid but a comfortably cool state of mind.
Summer showed up every Memorial Day when schools closed and pools opened. And it disappeared on Labor Day when pools closed and schools reopened.
June.
July.
August.
Three full months of pure Summer — Sundowner’s Swim Club, evening ballgames, rainbow sno-cones and an occasional night at French Village Drive-In, where you never remembered the movie but never forgot the children’s playground.
Summer was a state of mind more than a season.
Summer was cutoff jeans, white v-neck t-shirts, white tube socks with high stripes and a tattered pair of Chuck Taylors.
Summer was Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” vibrating the speakers of Mom’s gold Plymouth Valiant.
Summer was American Legion Hilgards baseball, and slow-pitch softball at every park in town, and fast-pitch softball nightly at Southside Park. I’m sure softball is being played somewhere. But back when summer was summer, it was everywhere.
Summer was the VP Fair on the Gateway Arch grounds You had to park almost in Affton, and it took a few hours to get through the traffic after the fireworks. Some of the loudest music ever came from cars stuck in VP Fair traffic downtown.
Summer was the Signal Hill Firemen’s picnic, and the county fair at the fairgrounds, and church picnics, cake raffles and drinking cold beer from a bucket.
On a recent summer evening, that didn’t seem like a summer evening, I drove by a few empty baseball diamonds. I thought about summers past and tried to figure out when my old friend summer changed. Or had I changed? Or both.
Sure, I’m older, slower, responsible and looking at summer from a totally different viewpoint, but it’s not the same.
It’s not summer weather anymore. June is an extension of spring. It’s wet, breezy and unpredictable. September is predictably hot, hazy and humid like a summer month. Our weather calendars have been pushed up one month.
Summer changed when other sports overlapped into baseball season. Once, only baseball or softball were played in summer. Left field ball. Indian Ball (my apologies if that offends anyone). Tennis ball. Whiffle Ball. We’d play ball if we had two or 22 players. And if it was only me, I’d grab my glove and a tennis ball and bank it off the carport wall or front step.
Baseball wasn’t on TV every night. Summer was watching the NBC Game of the Week every Saturday afternoon. Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. American League players like Al Kaline, Elston Howard, Boog Powell and Rocky Colavito. His name was so cool!
Summer was an evening drive to SIU-Edwardsville for the Mississippi River Festival. The Eagles, The Who. Harry Chapin. Ozark Mountain Daredevils. What was most amazing about the MRF was that we always found our cars and way back home.
Summer was a game of Jarts in the front yard, until a kid got wounded, and then the Jarts were hidden in the garage.
Summer was evening Kick-the-Can or Capture the Flag in the neighborhood, and every game ended in a draw because darkness always won.
Summer was a dare to eat a locust shell for a quarter. It was crunchy. The ice cream sandwich was worth it.
Summer was sitting in the cheap Terrace Reserved seats in the old Busch Stadium. You had to hold onto your popcorn or hot dog or a bird might swoop in and nab it.
I loved summer.
When summer was summer.
I wish it could be summer again, for a few days at least, as I remember it.
