The summer solstice is tomorrow, and while that’s the marker for the start of the season, we feel it much earlier now, thanks to the media and climate change. But it isn’t summer for me until I have the full sensory experiences that I associate with the season.
I grew up in the Mid-Atlantic region, where thunderstorms rolled in on exceptionally humid days and fireflies appeared at dusk in the summer months. For several years, we were members of our neighborhood pool, and my summer weekday schedule as a tween went like this:
Put on swimsuit, with t-shirt and shorts over top.
Pack tote bag with clean underwear, shampoo, conditioner, towel, sunscreen, goggles, and a paperback novel.
Load up my bike and ride to the pool, arriving right when it opened.
Swim 20 laps in the lap lane, then get out and read my book.
Hang out a little with whichever friends happened to show up, maybe goof around in the pool.
Go to the women’s changing room and wash my hair, put on my clothes, and wrap up my wet swimsuit in the towel I brought.
Ride bike back home and rinse my swimsuit in the bathroom sink.
Boil two Ballpark beef hotdogs in water on the stove, put them in toasted hot dog buns with mustard slathered on the sides, and eat them while watching TV.
Those summers smelled like Coppertone, chlorine, and Finesse shampoo, and tasted like lemonade, Gulden’s spicy brown mustard, and those ubiquitous hot dogs. The days were muggy and the nights were made cooler thanks to the blue-bladed fan on the floor of my bedroom, turned to the highest setting.
Every summer included at least one trip to Aunt Penny’s family beach house in Delaware, as she would inevitably invite us to join her and Uncle Oliver over there, along with one or more of her sisters and her parents. The house had four bedrooms, the biggest one featuring five twin beds, perfect for kids eager to have slumber parties every night during their stay. Several bikes leaned against a backyard shed, ready to ride around the neighborhood or over to the beach, if you felt brave enough to cross Coastal Highway. The outside shower had a bench with a variety of shampoos and conditioners, the well water coming out of the showerhead tasting slightly sour if you got it in your mouth.
The beach trips had the added bonus of fresh blueberries picked nearby or purchased from a roadside produce stand. Penny’s mom and sisters made everything from blueberry pancakes to pie, all of them delicious. The evening outing to Rehoboth Boardwalk started with dinner at Grotto Pizza, followed by ice cream at Royal Treat, then we’d head to Funland. Pops, Oliver, and other family members might get on the bumper cars, ramming into each other and laughing when someone got stuck in the corner. Penny and I would go on the FreeSpin ride and carousel, then join Oliver and Pops for Skeeball. We took black & white photos in the photo booth, Penny telling me, “Okay, we have four photos, so let’s do one smiling, one serious, one weird and one silly.” I still have that strip in a photo album.
Then there’s the Baltimore Orioles baseball games with Pops and Momcat, at Memorial Stadium and later Camden Yards, watching Cal Ripken earn his Iron Man moniker. There’s the Independence Day fireworks on the National Mall with family or friends, sitting on a scratchy blanket and alternating between oooh and ahhh as the dark DC sky filled with bursts of color. There’s the summer suppers with Silver Queen corn on the cob, beefsteak tomato slices, and fresh green beans. The bottles of green tinted aloe vera, slightly dented from use after a bad sunburn. The smoky smell of the barbecue pit out back grilling up hamburgers or steaks. The potato salad Pops and Momcat made together, chopping radishes and pickles, adding the perfect amount of Miracle Whip and mustard, narrowly avoiding an explosion of the pressure cooker full of potatoes. The plastic tumblers full of grape juice mixed with lemonade. The Jovan Dial-A-Tan tube I persuaded Momcat to buy at Dart Drug. The oversized watermelons from Schultz’s produce stand, cut into juicy wedges for eating.
Sometimes these summers seem so distant, like they happened to someone else. Then I catch one whiff of Coppertone, or listen to my summer music playlist, or cut open a watermelon, and I am right back there again.