Summer Days
We were a Summer cabin of eight grandchildren. We colored the page of each day. Shoes rarely worn, the bathing suits sagged, and all those brown arms and legs were rarely still. Scattered about the cabin or yard or boat house were flip flops, sandy beach towels and beach buckets, hats, sand bottles, yo yo's, shell wind chimes, water guns, floats, skis and dried flowers in mason jars.
We gathered together there every summer. There were no movie theatres, just a lonesome drive in theatre centered in rarely tended cornfields. There were no DVD's and movie rental stores, no fast food stands and only two grocery stores that were limited at best. There were no condominiums or high rise hotel towers, and only a few restaurants. There were no amusement parks, only one putt putt golf course. The cars were unairconditioned as was the cabin. Funny, I do not recall being bored, deprived or hot.
In those summer days of childhood, we played and laughed together. Together we swam, fished, skied, and explored together. Together we checked crab and gar traps, and followed the mullet schools. Including the grandparents, parents, and the summer cousins, there were sixteen of us, all together, in a cozy river cabin. I never felt crowded.
Just to share that unique season of the year and that unique block of life offered us an affection for that precious time. Now, decades later, all are grown up, established in a life and in multicorners of North America. But, if by chance, a misplaced inland beach breeze should brush against one of our faces, or perhaps the sight of clouds that resemble the look of drifting clouds over the Bay or the Gulf, then perhaps we would stop, pause, and grin when offered this unexpected breeze of memory. Memory wrapping itself around us, awakening the summer senses of living those days at water's edge. Those magical days in summer's memory outline an accumulation of people and adventures in that youthful naivety that brought splendid anticipation of the day unfolding, and the immortality of body and spirit. Perhaps, upon occasion we summer cousins' recall and remember those days and times together.
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| cousins on the Nellee |
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| Summer 1965 |
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John, Susan, and Sarah 1965
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