Simsbury summer

How to describe that particular smell: the steamy, oily, tar-laced goo of summer? It's unmistakable but it also takes me back to summers as a girl in Simsbury, Connecticut. It seemed the day school let out in June, the tar trucks began their rounds and continued all summer.

The 300-year-old town of Simsbury spread for miles in all directions so I couldn't ride everywhere on narrow back roads. But I rode my bike through those summers: through neighborhoods the back way to the dime store and to friends' houses. Sometimes I simply jumped on my bike and rode our one-mile circle like a maniac for the pure freedom it offered. I loved how the wind whipped my hair (no helmet of course) and the cool New England  air cleared my head. And mixed all through was that smell of winter-beaten streets being repaired and resurfaced.

Yesterday Bill and I biked to a city park for a picnic by the Olentangy River. About halfway there, I smelled it: Simsbury in summer. That is, a tar truck was surfacing a street or perhaps it was only a driveway. Immediately I was ten years old again, riding to the dime store, hair flying and legs pumping.

Amazing how the sense of smell stays with us and carries us. What smells take you back?

life

Man oh man. Three weeks since a post! Sorry 'bout that. Excuses? No kids to run to baseball practice, the pool, or out for ice cream. But ... life has gotten a little ornery and I get feeling a little overwhelmed and then my writing freezes! Grrrr.

 

If you've been with me awhile you probably know about this place; our cabin in Presque Isle, Michigan. We still are crazy about it, but it's time to sell. With kids and grandkids all living east and south, the cabin is too far for them to enjoy. And frankly, much as we love it, we'd rather spend our time and money being with family. So, know anyone looking for a sweet place? The views are spectacular!

 



Anyway, we've already made two trips up since May to tidy things up. And there might be another trip.

We had Katie with us for two weeks, helping at the cabin: fun! While I love being there, I do want to close this phase of our lives. Trusting God's perfect timing!

So. The writing might be sporadic, but I'll try to jump back in.

Thanks for checking in; hope you're having a great summer!

angry birds and bugs: summer in the south

My parents moved twice in three years: when both my older brother and I were freshmen in college. This little trick serves to throw a wrench into the summer social life of a college student. My high school friends were all 400 miles away and so for "fun" I'd help my mom harvest beans from her garden: a garden so large we could have opened a produce stand out front. What was my dad thinking?

Beyond our property was a scrubby field and woods, home to a variety of animals and most notorious: blue jays. Aggressive and greedy, these birds have a real attitude. They used to dive-bomb our cat, and there must have been something of interest in the garden because they also dive-bombed me. One scorching hot afternoon as I bent over the bean plants in my swimsuit top, sweat pouring off me, something swooped and swooshed against my bare back. I looked up in time to see a blue jay take off beyond the garden.

I was so freaked that it took some doing for mom to coax me back to the garden. What was to stop another bird from pecking a hole in my back?

Of similar, or worse, temperament are horse flies: the blue jays of the insect world. Those same college summers, I threw away my brain and agreed to camp counseling jobs in the backwoods east of Memphis, Tennessee. This is the Mississippi Delta, were the humidity is 125% and the mosquitos, chiggers and horse flies outnumber everything and everyone. Kamp Kiwani boasted a fabulous horse camp, which attracted horse-loving girls and a healthy horse fly population. Not only do horse flies love horses, they also are attracted to water.

Each night in the bath house, I'd make sure I had my soap, shampoo, and towels in order. A washcloth was handy for whacking the horse flies, who would join us in the bath house and bite us as we showered. If you were still in your cabin, you could hear the vicitims' screams coming from the bath house. Like blue jays, horse flies are aggressive and will attack boldly, unprovoked. I detest them for this reason. Their bite hurts like heck.

And so, in the midst of our midwest heat wave, how I appreciate air conditioning. No one is making me pick beans, and I have yet to see a horse fly in my shower. Thank you, Lord!

school's out!

School's wrapping up if you hadn't noticed.

Friends on facebook, moms and teachers, fellow bloggers ...

all so ready for summer.

One friend said, "I'm tired of being the homework Nazi."

How I used to relate to that one!

I remember my own last days of school as well as my children's.

They tumbled off the bus for the last time, a paper grocery sack under one arm.

It held the broken pencils, half erasers, and crumpled spelling tests from a now-clean desk back at school. On the other arm, a scuffed-up book bag and maybe a droopy marigold planted in a Dixie cup.

The last day of school was always hot

and my children's faces were flushed with damp bangs clinging to their foreheads.

But across that face was the biggest grin of the year.

A smile that said "summer, here I come!"

"I can't wait to go to the pool,

 play baseball, ride bikes, play hockey in the street when mom's not looking,

sell lemonade, play City (my kids can tell you about it),

go to church or scout camp, then forget all the lessons and fight with my brother,

sleep in the backyard, stay up late enough to see fireflies,

play bickerball in the front yard, read books in the hammock,

and GO TO FIRESIDE!" (Our favorite place in northern Michigan.)

Oh, I know that the paradigm of having summers off doesn't fit our non-agricultural lives anymore.

But I can't imagine kids missing out on the lazy days at home,

where sandwiches and mom's homemade popsicles made for a fun lunch on the porch,

or a few weeks with siblings made you wish for school to start. 

Yay, summer!

two brothers off to Boy Scout camp

the last summer

summer 1987: David, 3 and Dan, 2

Sometimes it feels like we are dorm-mates, Katie and me.

Her room is on the front corner of the house, my study is on the back, the smallest bedroom which was her room from the day she came home from the hospital until enough brothers had left home to choose a different room.

We each tinker on our computers, write in our journals and read. The upstairs comes alive in summer when Katie is home,

her giggles floating down the hall as she reads something funny.

She runs her laundry, pads up and down the stairs with a snack

and checks in with me on this or that.

Katie's brothers have really truly left, tending to their own lives and careers,

but Katie is still partly mine with one more year of college.

I know this could be our last summer together upstairs, as it probably should be. Haller kids don't stay around long once they finish college.

Darn it, they figure out that the world offers more excitement
and opportunity than the old neighborhood and off they go.

When we moved into this house 21 summers ago, we spent long days at the pool, the town ballfields, and Dairy Depot for ice cream.

I served watermelon in the backyard, homemade popsicles

on the front porch, and cut kids' hair on the deck.

Chapter books were read in the hammock out back.

I helped the kids to grow a garden and
taught them how to ride a two-wheeler.

Summer 1992

With four kids, summer was intense in every way.

The food, the dishes, the undone chores, the slamming doors

and endless bickering all marked summers in this house.

We chased the dog and the ice cream truck.
We awaited vacations at Fireside Inn with feverish anticipation.

More band-aids were administered in one summer
than I now use in five years.

The kids ran lemonade stands and played bicker-ball

in the front yard until fireflies pierced the deepening dusk. 

The boys first learned to cut grass in wobbly rows 

and practiced shooting hoops on the drive. 

My four needed baths every night to wash away

the sweat and grit from long, hot days of play.

We'd help them into their cotton jammies,

comb their sweet hair just right, then read a story

and pray while the crickets sang my babes to sleep.

Dan fishing at Grand Lake, Michigan 1997

Gradually they went from whiffle ball to wives and babies of their own.

And so, this being the last summer with a "child" at home,
I pray I will embrace new summers
without slamming doors,
of grass grown over home plate out front,
and the anticipation of serving popsicles to grandchildren
on the front porch.