What Means Summer to You?
In a totally unrelated article, Mags mentioned crabbing. Crabbing makes me think of summer; going out on a Jon boat or sitting on a dock, with chicken necks and a net, bringing home those sweet blue crabs and steaming them with some Old Bay. So do thunderstorms, and being on a river, lake or ocean - kayaking, fishing, playing, floating on a tube, whatever. I still like pulling the stamen through a honeysuckle blossom and tasting that drop of sweet nectar on my tongue, as we did when we were kids. The long days, corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes. The humidity that you somehow get used to. The way the sound of all the birds slowly changes to the sound of all the insects as summer turns bittersweet .. because you know that, unlike when you were a child, those precious months and long days aren't endless (for some reason, even more than the days gradually getting shorter, it's noticing how the insect noise takes over from the bird noise which really makes me start to think it's getting closer to the end of another summer).
What means summer to you? Old memories from where you used to live, newer memories from where you live now, or memories all over the map?
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Dear Friend Katrix: Summer means out of doors.
The winters run long here.
Spring is about 72 non-consecutive hours of neither snow ice or rain.
Summer means I can scale the 50-70 degree inclines for hours at a time.
It means I can get out and walk from dawn to dusk.
It means Mrs. E. and I can go to Lake Ontario for shoreline picnics.
It means we can go together to have dinner with our good friend Spikegary and his first lady for dinner along the Eire Canal as fine restaurants and all four of us watch the sun set over the waters.
It means we can go with our daughter, son and grandchildren on July 4th sitting outside watching the fireworks after grilling and eating supper together.
Summer is a time for communing with nature when it is our buddy.
It is a time to plant and nurture the soil.
Peace and Abundant Blessings Always.
Enoch.
Wonderful reply .. I'm glad for our long summers! Fireworks, grilling, hanging out on decks or patios and in nature .. all very good things about summer as you pointed out.
Charlotte's Web seemed to spell out the bittersweet nature of the end of summer so well. As soon as it starts, the days are already getting shorter. But in a way, that's good - it brings me hope and cheer to know that in the harshest days of winter, each day is getting longer, and so I guess I'd rather see the days getting longer then.
This song says it best for me.
I love that song.
Thin Lizzy's "The Boys are back in town" also makes me think of summer - college is over and the boys are back in town. They apparently haven't grown up too much, but still!
"Summer Time" is one of my all time favorites, and says it all for me on summer.
Certain songs, as Kavika pointed out, mean summer too. I think of a line from a Springsteen song "Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain" (Jungleland)
Songs of summer.. mine would be these:
If I had to distill summer to one activity, it would probably be a cookout with family and friends, perhaps a large picnic. Suntan lotion, watermelon, beer, fireworks. A softball game and water balloon fights for the kids.
Summer songs - Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer - Nat King Cole
Light My Fire - The Doors
It's Still Rock n Roll To Me - Billy Joel
Wild Thing - The Troggs
Summer In The City - Lovin Spoonful
Hips Don't Lie - Shakira
The song Summer In the City - as I recently mentioned in here to someone who had never been to NYC before - isn't nearly as appealing to me after I spent a summer living in Lower Manhattan! The smells, the subway ... if I'm dealing with that heat and humidity, I don't want to be surrounded by concrete and nasty odors. The other ones, I agree with
But not all of those songs mention summer - so I assume you associate them with specific memories of past summers, rather than thinking they stand for summer in general (as I view The Boys Are Back In Town, with the line about it won't be long till summer comes)?
I always like "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts
That's a good one, too.
All the songs I mentioned were among the 100 top hits of the past 60 summers according to Billboard's Greatest Songs Of Summer list. I just picked out a few that I liked.
When i was a little kid I remember a song they played on the radio that was a hit every summer for 5 or 6 years in a row.
Here's another one that really reminds me of hot weather for some reason. I'm not even sure it came out in the summer but I think it did. \
Oh, that's a good one.
The ubiquitous "they" say that that songs and smells are the things that bring us back the most to our older memories ... makes sense to me.
Big, big, big, summer song. I remember being at a block party the year this song was popular and there were about 50 people doing the Macarena in the middle of the street, under the lamplights.
Don't forget the really great Chicago Polish Dogs that you told me about a couple of years back. Those alone can make an entire summer complete by themselves (well, they might need a baseball game in front of them to be perfect).
Katrix, you are right when you say that the summers seemed endless and now they pass like a dream.
I guess you could have called me a beach baby, since I lived in a beach town. Wantagh was the home to Jones Beach, and we could ride our bikes to the beach.
It was also a time of mischief. I was a latch key kid and had a lot of time on my hands. Mud pie wars, fishing on the local lake, hanging outside catching fireflies till my mom would call for sister and me to come in.
It was a time to sleep over at my cousin's out on eastern Long Island and visit my great uncles chicken farm in Vineland, NJ.
I was poor as a child, but I hardly noticed. Kids just didn't seem to care back then.
Now summers have become precious, because they pass on by so quickly I enjoy the company of my childhood friends, relax by the pool, and look for furry and feathered friends. I love listen to the sounds and being outside (unless I am being eaten by the mosquitoes).. and of course good food. Nothing tastes better than stuff fresh off the bar b.
I am sure I am missing a lot.. I am still waiting for spring to come... it's late.
LOL, I was a latch key kid too, except for every other weekend, then I was at my dads on the lake he lived near. I was also a beach kid, we lived in Miami, FL then.
Summer was Krandon Park Zoo and, beach, water skiing on the lake using my dads boat, canoeing, catching snakes, (my mom loved that one, NOT), crabbing along the shore and, fishing in the canals.
Beach baby, beach baby, give me your hand .. heh. All those beach songs.
The older I get, the faster time passes. It used to seem like an eternity from one Christmas to the next. Now I think, I just took down my decorations, now I have to put them back up already? It doesn't feel that way so much when I garden, though. The life cycle of gardening means I'm always busy (I'm looking at a large daffodil patch which barely bloomed this year, and thinking of how it will take me 3 hours to divide them all up and plant them somewhere else around the yard) but there's always something new to look forward to. I have at least something blooming all but one or two months out of the year. Snowdrops and Hellebores are key for that.
If you're poor as a child but have places like that to hang out, you have tons of stuff to do and are never bored. We rode our bicycles everywhere, played in the local creeks and parks; we weren't poor, since we never worried about going hungry, but we didn't go to movies or out to dinner except on very special occasions. We went to the library instead, used our imaginations, played with Matchbox cars and Legos and made little boats to float in the creek. Which usually sank, because we sucked at making boats.
I have relented and bought a 10 by 10 easy-up canopy for my deck. I can put it up in 5 minutes .. and then I can sit outside if it's raining. And I can put its screen sides up in just a few more minutes, so if the bugs are bad we (a) won't get eaten alive; (b) our food will be insect-free; and (c) can read outside after dark without moths trying to mate with my headlamp. And that works all the way up until it gets really cold outside.
Wow, I forgot about the song Beach Baby. I love it. I'll have to put it on my ipod.
It was strange about growing up in the 60's. Your right about never being bored, even if you were poor. I had an old second hand bike, but it took me everywhere and I was always busy. Food was fine. I had a mom who could make an old shoe taste good. I only really knew we were poor when we moved from Amityville ( yes that one) to Wantagh. My parents bought the crumbliest house in a good neighborhood and that is when it became evident to me. Still, what doesn't kill ya, makes you stronger.
My garden still can't be planted. Even in a good year, on Long Island it's not safe to plant until Mother's Day. Right now the bulbs are just beginning to come up.. no flowers yet. It's been a sad spring so far.
I have a gazebo that I think I will put back up this year.. so I can sit out and not get eaten alive. We didn't get to it last year as we just moved here on May 1, and there was so many other things to do.
You're telling me. We've almost gotten more snow in April than we got got in January, Februrary and March .... combined.
Wicked storm the last five days or so.
I think that it's the years that are doing that Perrie. This summer, on June 9th, my son and his fiance are getting married. Today, he (age 34) went over to the Middle School to ask his old football and wrestling coach to the wedding. Unfortunately, he won't be able to come because HIS DAUGHTER IS GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL THAT DAY. This is the daughter who was born when my son was a high school freshman, the same little baby that my daughter babysat for at wrestling meets. This year, the oldest of my grandchildren is going to become a teenager. What the heck, I don't really feel that old. Oh yeah, shortly after that wedding, I'm going to be changing my avatar. I figure that those little kids are growing up fast and that the wedding is a good place to catch all four of them dressed up and on their best behavior for a fresh picture.
I think you should TTGA. Get the memories while you can.
When you are 10 years old , one summer is a good chunk of your experience. . It literally seems like a lot.
When you are 60, or 70, or 90, one summer is a far smaller part of your overall life experience.
This explains why time seems to pass faster the older you get. Each day or week or month is a tinier and tinier part of your total experience.
That is exactly how I explain it too.
who gives a fuck, besides you?
I am in good company then.
Very true John, but there are some that stand out. I've found that those that do generally involve children. Children in general because they are the future of the species and those directly descended from you because their genetic pattern is your only real chance at immortality. Not only are they important in themselves and in what they represent, but they're also a lot more fun to be around than sitting around with your peers talking about the other peers who are now dead. Not only does their enthusiasm for life and desire to learn new things gratify the elders who tried to raise them, but their joy at being out and active makes you feel younger too. Well, if not younger, at least it makes the sore muscles you get from trying to keep up with them and keep them safe a bit more bearable. When I die, I may have five minutes to remember the best things in my life. Those will be the memories that matter to me and most of them happened in one summer or another.
I had one, at least the crankshaft damper had the "weird nut" on the front to hand crank the old PITA, but the grille actually prevented one from using the handle thoughtfully provided by the
manufacturer in the 'boot'.
It was so much easier to get the car rolling, or push it down hill and pop the clutch than
actually remove the grille, attempt to start the bitch and
a - retrieve the handle from the field or
b - go to the Doctor or Grandma, to get your broken arm set (again)
That being said, I cann't remember what I went to the grocery store for yesterday
But I remember, very well, a few broken bones from 45 years ago........
Every time I think of summer songs I can only think of one that says summer to me. Now, when it comes to summer movies, I got a bunch, all of them have one feature that stands out, Frankie Avalon and, Annette Funicello. But, the song I think of wasn't done by either of them, here it is.
I was a kid when my sister Leta and, her husband Lee took me and, my other sister to watch this at a drive-in in the early summer, right after school ended for the summer, since then, it's my summer song.
I can see why that means summer to you!
As a teenager, I worked at a movie theater. There were some really crappy teen summer movies then .. about Spring Break. But they flashed boobs, so they made money. As if the kids couldn't still peek at a Playboy for free at the drugstore (the Internet wasn't yet public at that point).
If I ever have to see Porky's again, I will destroy something. Did you know Kim Catrell, Catrall, whatever, of Sex and the City fame, started her career as Lassie in Porky's? I guess those are more fun memories of my summer job than if I had worked at McDonald's.
That explains why she seems to have gotten stuck in those kinds of rolls.
Bebe tu tan suave
OOOOOHHHH
One of my favorite songs ever.
The beginning lyrics got cut off .. but I don't even need to look them up . Definitely a summer song in NYC
That one gets me dancing, and I'm not much of a dancer. But when I hear that, I don't even care.
Love the intro on this one!
The Summers of my youth were spent on a farm and ranch and they were long and generally hard. We all worked from sunup until after sundown. Peas don't jump from pods and peaches do not peal and can themselves and daylight is for outdoor work. In the evening we sat and listened to baseball games or the Grand Olde Opry on the radio while children and old folks did all the shucking and the shelling, the pealing and the paring, the canning and preserving of all the farm's bounty. There was no air-conditioning back when so after working well into the night we all slept on a screened in sleeping porch on cots, sleeping bags and pallets. Between the cows in the field, the dogs searching for the inevitable varmints stalking the hen houses, a cacophony of insects and other wildlife plus the enduring ever present radiating heat we usually could not slip off to sleep until the cooler hours of three or four in the morning only to be awakened by the cock's crow at the first signs of daylight. Sigh. Other than that the best memories of my Summers of old are of its abundance. We may have been poor dirt farmers back then but we surely ate better than most millionaires...
The summers of my youth were all about work, too. I got some time off during the hot part of the afternoon, but as soon as it cooled down some, back to the garden or lawn mower.
Now I can enjoy my summer weekends since I have to work during the week. We're planning on buying a camper and I want to "test" it this summer with small weekend trips to state parks.
I spent Summer and Fall of 2016 pulling a trailer home all over Canada, New England and back and forth a few times. It was a novel experience and definitely a bucket list accomplishment but including depreciation on the trailer and truck and fuel and space rental I figure it cost me about five hundred bucks a night. So, power to ya. You have not lived until you get yourself into a situation where you have to back that trailer through a maze. KOA knows more about me than I wish. In any case, I will be smiling just thinking about it...
I bet that was a fun experience.
I think you'll enjoy that a lot. I always have. So did my wife until she figured out that camping was housework without the microwave. Still fun for both of us and our kids and grandkids.
When you are able to make longer trips, come on up our way and we'll buy dinner (or cook it on the grill). We've had other KK people stop by over the last few years and always love it.
I may do that, but I prefer to stay close to home when camping. Arkansas has so much to offer, I don't see the need to leave the state for camping.
Mr Giggles and I split the chores when it comes to camping so I'm not worried about that. He tries to make it as enjoyable for me as he can so I will go along on those trips.
Backpacking, bugs, sweat and endless views.
We have "jubilees" here on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. If one doesn't live on the Bay, then, a friend who does calls at anytime during the night or early morning as they have been watching. You grab your coolers and head out. The fish, crabs and shrimp come on to shore and you just scope them up and head back home.
I vaguely recall having a few "jubilees" here in Texas. They do pack a bit of a wallop but tasty.😋
Wearing short pants, grilling, gardening, tomatoes, setting on the deck, fun times
and right now it is cold, windy and a few snowflakes
Baseball. My son's baseball season has started. They've actually played in snow flurries, so my perception of baseball meaning summer is not based on reality. But that's reality's fault.
Lightning bugs.
Honeysuckle.
Dinner on the deck.
drinking on the deck
Falling off the deck.
Never fallen.
I did jump once. But that was a long story.
Squishing lightening bugs on our arms for bracelets. So much fun.
Eww, that sounds kind of gross - I guess it was the earliest form of those glo-sticks kids buy these days. I still have them hit my windshield and make it glow when I'm driving in the summer.
Oh, I forgot to mention llightning bugs!
Hi Katrix, what a lovely discussion! It's great to see you again. I recently moved to the Oregon coast (last October). So we spent our first winter living near the Ocean. We are only a short walk to the beach. I so loved being here through the winter, but I am now ready for spring and summer. I can't wait to see what summer brings!
Hello Firery
Welcome!
Thank you very much Sparty. Good to see you.
Good to see you! My parents always said the Oregon coast was one of the most beautiful places they've ever been. And they had been in every state except Alaska (which I made up for Mom on her 80th birthday).
It is so incredible! I am very happy to have made the move.
and another good one shows up!
Thank you charger...great to see you!
Newer one, mainly because he's singing about where i grew up.
All Summer Long
Pretty much describes my summertime youth.
Lol to me it basically means more chores, but no matter it's totally worth it.
But when you're done, there's always that nice, cold beverage waiting for you on the porch, deck, wherever....
I'll take cutting grass over shoveling and blowing snow any day. Plus the water is warmer so we don't freeze our noogies off so much when diving.
Love me some summer. Wish we got more of it up here.
Lol the time of year here doesn't matter, if you're diving in the local lake you're freezing your noogies off (they're guessing it'll be ice free in early June this year).
Well, when there's ice, you cut a hole and dive through it. A lot of extra work but fun just the same.
Lol you're a better man than I, if it's not at least 70 I ain"t diving in it
Yeah well, truthfully it's been awhile.
I'm getting too old for that kind of stuff.
Oh, I couldn't do that Fish. Cutting grass is the bulk of my exercise program. I can just see myself in a couple of weeks; reaching out with my left foot, placing it down carefully, pushing down the clutch so that I can change the gears up and holding on tight as the speed increases to a sizzling four mph.
Are you going to do the zipline through the jungle again this year?
My onion grass already needs to be cut. The rest of the lawn, not so much.
I agree with you all saying, the older I get, the faster time seems to go by.
It was great growing up in Maryland. We just went anywhere and everywhere. Didn't seem to have any boundaries. We also spent a month at the beaches. Rehoboth beach and/or Ocean City.
Where I live now it is hell when it is 90-95° and high humidity. Walk outside into a blast furnace and end up drenched in sweat in one minute (good time to travel). So on the weekends we usually just take out the boat and/or the jetskis and traverse the rivers and the bays. Good way to cool off.
Opening up the Lake House (which we are planning to do first Weekend in May, though I got reports that the lake surface is still frozen!) is always the opening day of summer for me. BTW, I was in D.C. Saturday and it was 85 and sunny.......fresh snow on the ground here in Western New York yesterday....sigh.
Don't be jealous. I live not too far from DC, and we had a freeze two nights ago, and we're having another one tonight. It's been a chilly, rainy and windy April and when I should be getting my gardens in order, I haven't been able to do much of anything. And the river's so flooded it will take forever to warm up enough for kayaking. Sigh. It's hell on my farming friends - by the time they can uncover the lettuce and spinach, it will end up getting hot so quickly that it will bolt (go to seed and get bitter, and worthless).
Saw this today......eloquently explained.....
Very true. We whine now because it's too cold, and in another month we'll be bitching about the heat!
What summer means is that it gets hotter then hell (we had several days over 120 degrees last summer and 110-115 was common) and my A/C is on a LOT. We have our electric bill averaged over the year, which means it's fairly high even in the winter when it should be low, but if we didn't we would have months of over $500 for our electric bill. Can't walk the dog, so they sometime sneak out when it's shady (remember, ALL officials temps like the 120+ one are recorded in the shade, not in the sun) and do their business, but many days the tile floor in the formal living room look more like a kennel floor and I really can't blame them for not wanting to burn their paws.
Our summer is like a lot of people winter. We only go out when we have to. From and AC house to and AC car to an AC store or wherever and then back. If it actually gets down to about 100-105 we sometimes venture out to the swimming pool.
The swimming pool must be like bathwater at that point! My friends in FL had a pool and by July nobody even wanted to get in it.
They are great at any temp if you step on a fire ant mound - jest sayin'.
Fortunately the people who built our house built it with almost the entire backyard a Kool decking. Still I haven't seen any fire ants around here? They're actually very rare here in the Coachella Valley.
But you are right Katrix, the pool water is not very cool when it's been 100+ for for awhile, but it still is better then the air and you do cool off. Especially when you run back into the A/C'd house. One of our dogs (6 year old rescued mutt) absolutely loves the pool. We bought her a dog float that is made of inflated rubberized canvas so her claws don't tear it up and one usually lasts the summer. When she is bored she'll run outside and if it's by the side of the pool, climb in and swim herself around for awhile. When she's tired of that she climbs off, swims to the steps out and into the house all wet. If one of us in in the pool she is ALWAYS in it. The oldest dog (she 13) likes to be carried around in the pool and we're not really sure about the recuse terrier mutt yet.