June 5, 2008

• Summertime....
     Do you remember
  the last day of school in the spring, when delicious summer used to
  stretch out in front of you like a shining yellow ribbon that just kept
  unwinding forever off its spool?
     When I was a child, it
  seemed like the span of months from the time school was out in May to
  when we went back to school after Labor Day lasted as long as a year
  does now, or maybe longer. Those endless sunshiny days, when you could
  take your time and never have to get in a hurry, and go barefoot, and
  read books, and make chains of clover blossoms, and eat hand-cranked
  homemade ice cream and play Hide-and-Go-Seek with your cousins?
     I
  hope summertime still feels that way to today's children. I'm not sure
  it does, since modern kids seem to be kept much busier than we were
  with supervised, planned activities — organized sports, summer camps,
  music lessons, dance classes, as well as elaborate family vacations.
  They may be so busy that the summer is over before they can turn around.
     When I think of my childhood summers, I think of Mississippi.
     Every
  summer of my life, my family packed up the big Ford station wagon and
  drove long miles from wherever the Navy had taken us — Florida,
  Virginia, Georgia, Washington State, Rhode Island — on the annual
  pilgrimage to our ancestral homeland in the Deep South.
     The
  house Mama grew up in in Macon was our home base. Daddy would park the
  station wagon in the gravel driveway under the huge oak trees, and we’d
  invade Poppy and Granddaddy's big old white pre-Civil War house for a
  couple of weeks.
     My sister Cissy and I were in
  little-girl heaven in Macon, with all the freedom that a small town
  offered to children in those more innocent days. We could flip-flop our
  way to the American Legion swimming pool a few blocks away, or even the
  mile over blistering sidewalks “to town” where we’d spend a happy hour
  reading Archie comic books and chewing huge wads of grape bubble gum in
  Miss Claire Ferris' Bookstore. Or Mama would drop us off for a matinee
  at the Dreamland Theater, the same theater where she’d watched World
  War II newsreels as a child.
     We could count on my
  mother's sister —my aunt Mimi — and her two boys, our cousins Danny and
  Beau, driving up from Jackson to see us while we were in town. Cissy
  and I were always ecstatic to see our older cousins, especially Beau,
  whom we extravagantly admired. He was rough and tough and knew boy
  stuff that our family of little girls didn't know — like how to throw a
  football, or build a tree house high in the tallest oak tree — and he
  could play the guitar! Beau was sweet enough to let his little girl
  cousins follow along behind him some of the time, so we dogged his
  steps and waited on him hand and foot like faithful slaves.
     With
  visiting cousins and neighborhood friends, Cissy and I spent happy
  hours out in Poppy and Granddaddy's big yard. There was a big treeless
  lot on the side where we'd play touch football or fly kites. We were
  fascinated by the front yard’s gnarled, shady magnolia tree, which had
  a long, low branch that allowed even clumsy tree-climbers like me
  access to its cool, rustling depths.
     The front steps and
  sidewalk were the setting for a crazy-quilt of carefree pastimes.
  Poppy's front porch had a dozen concrete steps up to it, and the steps
  were flanked on either side by short brick two-level walls that were
  the perfect size for children to sit, or even lie down, on. Leading
  from the front steps down to the quiet cul-de-sac was a long, wide
  concrete sidewalk, where we roller-skated and rode bikes and trikes and
  played jacks and hopscotch. The steps and the sidewalk were the stage
  for a thousand barefoot games of Rock School, Running Water, Red
  Light-Green Light, and Mother May I.
     We played out
  there every evening, until the lightning bugs started sparking in the
  grass. Then it was time to dash to Poppy's pantry and find Mason jars
  to catch them, running through the twilight through the cool grass,
  before it was time to go inside. It seems like Cissy and I went to
  sleep every night with lightning-bug lamp on the dresser in our room,
  twinkling sweetly in the dusk.
    
  My sister and I would
  snuggle up in the bed under the light white chenille bedspread and
  soft, ironed linen sheets, under the framed composite of our Aunt
  Kaki's school pictures all the way from first grade through her senior
  portrait, which we studied with fascination. The silvery gray wallpaper
  was decked with big white feathery scrolls, and the high ceiling looked
  like it was a mile away. We could hear the faint murmurs of Poppy and
  Mama and Aunt Mimi's voices from the front porch, and the quiet noise
  of Granddaddy's TV from the back of the house. The light white curtains
  blew gently in front of the tall open windows, letting in the warm
  Southern air, soft with humidity. We'd drift off to sleep to the
  comforting chorus of crickets and cicadas, and would soon be dreaming
  honeysuckle dreams.
  
  By Celia DeWoody
  Copyright Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times 2008
  Published June 4, 2008
  
  

  • 9:50 pm
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