Summer for me has always been a great marker of time. More so even than Christmas, as lovely, sentimental, and holy as that season certainly is.
It’s so easy to float a summer wind back to visceral warm weather moments, a slightly sun burned body hitting cold saltwater, the delight of finding a root beer popsicle double stick at the corner mom-and-pop grocery, rolling around in the back seat of your parents’ car parked deep in an apple orchard after midnight.
A kid growing up in a densely urban area might struggle to find an empty orchard and a young person today has probably only seen a mom-and-pop store in a Robert DeNiro Movie, but we all replay sticky, strictly summer delights. Walking from blistering midday heat into a movie theater which hits you with air conditioning roughly the temperature of Iceland in February, mixed with the smell of delicious if not questionable popcorn. Corn on the cob cooked on an outdoor grill by a father or uncle who knows what he is doing, smothered with butter and salt. (HEY, “EAT THIS NOT THAT” ……EAT THIS!”
Sorry.
Lawn clippings floating on the water of the lucky neighborhood kids whose parents loved them enough to put in an above ground pool.
The smell of gas mixing with saltwater. I know, it’s bad, but smell is the strongest sense, and when our next-door neighbor Charles Lane let me hang out around his old 40-foot Chris Craft at the East Haven Marina, it smelled like paradise.
All of this can be summed up in one maligned word. NOSTALGIA.
We are told bathing in nostalgia keeps you from staying in the game, being open to new ideas and God help us all…. LIVING IN THE PAST!
Look, I know the past is gently varnished in our minds. I don’t miss the horrors of what was done to our fellow Americans at the hands of racists. Or the lies of big tobacco. Or the fact that Sunny D was not really orange juice, or that TV dinners were not really food. (Sorry, mom.) I know that American boys died fighting in Vietnam, only to realize that their granddaughters Pink ass-displaying leggings are now made there. That sucks.
Andy Warhol once said, “America is drowning in nostalgia.” Maybe so. But for many Americans the summer of 2020 was really shitty. So, this summer I am going to see some old high school garage band friends in New Haven. We are going to relive oft-told adventures, disasters, lovers, and occasional exaggerations.
I am going to eat raw clams and drink beer at a bar and remember my father introducing me to that wonderful taste of the Atlantic. I’m going to a hot dog joint called Blackies. Have not been there since I was 12. Best dogs in the East. And the guys and I will get New Haven Pizza. The best in the country. Google it.
I’ll walk on beaches near where I grew up and drive by several of the houses my family rented.
I will drown in nostalgia. I feel no shame. After the year we’ve all been through, is it so wrong to embrace for just a few hours moments of carefree past. Even if it was not really carefree.
Lennon said it…” Whatever gets you through the night.”
Mary and I have had it much easier than most Americans this year. All I really need to be happy is her and my friends and children, yet we all felt the horror of the virus.
Sinatra sang it….” The summer wind came blowing in, from across the sea, it lingered there to touch your hair and walk with me” ….
I’ll enjoy my friends’ stories, roasted seafood but probably not rolling around in the backseat of my parents Pontiac in the apple orchard. Gosh, I sure do miss that car.
That was wonderful and well put Bob!
I grew up in Queens New York and summers were sticky hot with mosquitos buzzing my ears and me sweating under the sheets.
Regular working people could rent a tiny cabin at a “bungalow colony” – refer to the movie Walk on the Moon for perfect representation. My family was able to spend two months there – dad commuted to Manhattan to work (I guess mom just told her boss she’d be gone!).
Those were the most wonderful summers for me – age 3 to 12. Recently a Facebook group was created for the kids I grew up with and we share pictures of ourselves and our parents. It’s brought me much nostalgia and joy.
Have a wonderful trip Bob. Treasure those friends and this memories!
Wow! Didn’t know Bob was a writer too! This was great!
I love being nostalgic with old friends. I grew up in Sebastopol in Sonoma County, California. It doesn’t quite have the small-town feel that it did when I grew up there but when we reminisce that small town comes to life again and the feelings that we felt come back.
Have a wonderful time, Bob!
I SURE MISSED YOU GUYS. GLAD YOU’RE BACK, JUST WISH YOUR TIME SLOT WAS A LITTLE LONGER. BE YOUR SELFS AND DON’T CHANGE. LOVE YOU GUYS.
This was really great, Bob. I am so sentimental and nostalgic myself so I fully understand what you wrote here. Have a great time in your old stomping grounds this summer. Can’t wait to hear the tales when you return!
Bob I loved ever word this and feel richer for having loved summer like I do…
Love this story Bob. You paint the picture beautifully. Enjoy your visit!
Thanks Bob for the stroll down memory lane. Yes, we all need to visit our childhood memories every now and then; to help understand how our broken world has changed.
I grew up on a dairy farm and watched with envy, my other city friends enjoy watching cartoons after school, riding their bikes to friends home to play or be involved in after school activities. I missed things like that, but I learned a work ethic that has gotten me through many hard times throughout my 70 plus years.
We all travel different paths, some memorable, some we just as soon forget; but life is what you make it.
I so enjoy listening to the Bob and Sheri show on 104.5 in little ole Vinton Iowa. You two give us some laughs to start our day, or teach us new insights into the medical field, or just entertain us on our drives to and fro, wherever we are going.
I so look forward each day to listening to both of you and Max and guests you might have at any given day.
Thank you for your dedication and laughs!!
Sandy
A great story Bob!
That is Awesome Bob, knock yourself out, have the best time reminiscing.
What you say about those smells really I can relate, just a couple, coffee and gasoline when Dad would fill the old Studabaker up and I would get a whiff of that gas they had in the 60’s.
I hope your summer is filled with all those feelings of the ones gone before, and much better than last.
So glad to hear the show every week day and Thursday get together.
Have a Fabulous weekend.
Great way prime the nostalgia for those more carefree times. At least that’s how most of us look to the past. I enjoy your sense of yourself, and positive outlook.
Thank you and Sherri for your presence in my world in Waco, TX.
👏👏👏
Thanks Bob. You stirred up some great memories from my growing up days too.
I grew up in Western New York but we vacationed down in Sag Harbor, Long Island ,where my Dad spent his summers as a kid, every July. I learned to love raw clams because of Dad’s love of those Long Island summers.
I can almost taste those root beer popsicles too!
My boyfreind had a great Plymoth Rambler whose front seats reckind ALL THE WAY DOWN. It was a great cat for parking at that dead end street by the woods and at the Drive In….
Hope to hear about your trip!
Cheers and Lobster Love,
Dianae Weeks
I have been a listen for so many years. I have tried to follow y’all to K104.7, but when I tune in through/on Alexa I never hear y’all, maybe twice. All I hear is other people & somewhat “good” music. Is it because I’m using Alexa? Thank you.