♩♫♪ In The Good Ol' Summertime ♪♬♩

One of my favorite summer things to do as a child in the sixties, was to go bike riding. Sometimes my rides were 'far-ranging', meaning a few miles out to the cemetery on the outskirts of our little town. Sometimes just around the block a few times. My beloved bike was passed down to me by my sister; a big brown thing with a double basket on the back for toting my library books or fetching something from the little neighborhood store. She (it was a she) also had a big coiled spring on the front, a kind of shock absorber, which made it possible to bounce a bit. For that reason, I always imagined I was actually riding a horse. It was not pretty and not cool like the new blue, red or silver stingray bikes with banana seats the neighbor kids were getting, but I loved her just the same.

Sometimes in the late afternoons, as the sun began to drop toward the cornfields to the west of town, I'd ride down our street, across 'the ditch' and over toward 3rd Street, go up past Elmer DeCoursey's place, turn left at Zak's, back toward 4th Street and ride home. As I took these short round-the-block rides, I'd often spot old Mrs. Hostettler sitting on her front porch swing. I'd been to her house a few times visiting with my mom and she always waved as I rode by. One day, I decided I'd stop and visit with her by myself. I was probably 9 or 10 years old and she was in her 70s or 80s. A painfully shy kid, I'd never done anything like that before. She warmly welcomed me, got me a glass of icy cold lemonade and we chatted about this and that, I've no idea what about. She acted like it was the greatest thing in the world that I was visiting her and that made me feel pretty special.

So I began making a regular habit of riding over to visit with her, once every week or so throughout the rest of the summer. Every time I stopped, her face lit up like the sun and she smiled like there was no tomorrow. One of my summer outfits that year was a pair of multicolor tattersall pedal pushers. (Today we call them capris.) I had these on once when I stopped to see her and as I sat on her porch swing with her, she reached over, gently touched the fabric and said it reminded her of fruit cocktail. I grew very fond of that old lady. Other than that little memory about the pedal pushers, I have no idea what we talked about, but I loved visiting her. She was so sweet.

I also loved our next door neighbor, Ralph. Ralph was a hale and hearty type. When I was very little, he called me Pinky and would pick me up and toss me in the air while I screamed bloody murder. Six decades later I'm still afraid of heights, being on ladders, flying, etc. But I loved Ralph to pieces. So did every other kid in the neighborhood and in the summers, if we saw him outside we'd go rushing over. He had a thumb that had gotten mashed at some point in his younger life and all that was left of the nail was a ruined brown, scabby looking remnant. The ritual was that when any of the neighborhood kids asked him what happened to his thumb, he would say, "I was pickin' my nose and a booger bit it!" and then laugh uproariously.  He must have been asked that a thousand times by every kid around. The boys would laugh and hardy-har-har along with him, but I'd just smile foolishly and stare at him in wonder. I didn't quite get it, I guess!

 Another sweet joy of our childhood summers was the milkman, Mr. Hart. Why? Because when he made his rounds and we were all strewn across someone's porch steps, sweaty and limp with the heat, he'd call us over to his truck and hand each of us a huge, crystal clear chunk of ice as big as our heads. What child wouldn't be thrilled with that? Three or four of us would then sit on the curb gnawing away at our giant ice chunk, water dribbling down our chins, soaking our clothes and making clean trails through the brown dust our bare feet were caked with.

Summers in Knox County, Indiana also meant the County Fair. I (and every kid in town) waited months for this glorious event. It was the climax of our season of paradise. A few short weeks later, we'd be back at school, carrying loads of books, picking playground gravel out of knees and pounding clouds of chalk dust out of the blackboard erasers. So The Fair was our last hurrah of summer.

When I was nine, I got to join 4-H. This was a BIG deal. All the girls took cooking and/or sewing and most of us signed up for both. We started out with cookies and place-mats made out of huck toweling and each year progress to projects increasingly more difficult. In the fifth year, I managed to pick out a dress to make that was difficult enough as it was, but also (why, I'll never know) picked out a yellow gingham check fabric to make it out of.  I think because the picture on the front of the pattern showed it in a huge yellow check. So that's what I got. When our leader, Miss House saw that fabric, she was spitting mad. She looked at me incredulously and asked me "Don't you know that fabric has to be matched at every seam!?" Uh, no I didn't because I was totally ignorant of fabric pattern matching. I was quickly relegated to the background and put to work sewing the seams while Miss House and her helpers cut that fabric out and matched it all....perfectly. When I went out to the fairground to see what kind of ribbon it won, one of the Maberto twins passed me. "Congratulations!" she said. "For what?" I asked. She said, "Don't you know, you got Reserve Champion on your dress!" Oh, good grief! I knew darn well I didn't earn that lavender ribbon! Miss House and her helpers earned that ribbon! I was so embarrassed, I dropped out of 4-H. I couldn't face Miss House again. Though I'd thanked her for her help when the dress was done, I just wish I'd presented her with that ribbon.

Every year, my mother prepared me for the fair a couple of weeks in advance by doling out her warnings and lectures on fair safety ("Watch out for those 'carnies'! They're dangerous!" and proper behavior ("Stay away from the boys!" and "Don't act like you were born in a barn!") Yes, Mom, yes... Nevertheless, these adamant admonitions didn't put a dent in my breathless anticipation of the delights to be found at our annual county fair. The lights of every color, the noise of excited kids, the redolent smells! Cotton candy, popcorn, candied and caramel apples, giant fritters and elephant ears dripping with butter and sugar! The smell of the fried fish wafting from the Tri Kappa tent! The barkers hawking their goods or trying to lure you into flinging a wooden ring at pegs in the hopes of winning a giant teddy bear or stuffed dog! And best of all....the carnival rides! The Octopus, Bumper cars and boats, the Tilt-O-Whirl (my personal favorite), the ubiquitous ferris wheel and roller coaster, the Round-Up, the Zipper, the Super Swings and so many others which varied from year to year.

Once the long-awaited fair was over, the dog days of August set in, and a strange quietude and somnolence set in over our entire town. It was no longer light enough outside at 9:30 to keep playing Midnight Ghost, Hide n' Seek or other such street games. Time to be getting ready for the coming school year; going to Vincennes to Gimbel's for a new dress or two or perusing the Sears catalog for pleated wool skirts and new socks. One of my favorite things was the annual fall trip to Byrne's Shoe Store. To this day, new shoes have always held a childlike thrill for me. I remember when I got to the eighth grade, Mom gave me the money to go up to Byrne's and get shoes by myself. She also let me get a purse I'd been eyeing for a while...it was my birthday present that year. I LOVED that purse...but I couldn't begin to tell you what it looked like!

The summers of our youth were so wonderful; at times bittersweet, yet heady with freedom and childish pleasures. Sixty years later, there is still a certain time in late August when the quality of the light, the angle of the sun, the colors of the waning summer and the very air itself generates an urge to leaf through a Sears catalog and shop for new winter shoes and coat. It's a slightly melancholy feeling--the first signal of our year beginning to wind to its close. I love it.

Till next time,

"The child I was is just one breath away from me." ~ Sheniz Janmohamed