Summertime Memories

"Summertime and the living is easy.

Fish are jumpin and the cotton's high.

Your daddy is rich and your mommy is good-looking.

So hush little baby, don't you cry."

I've loved this song, even after my mother told me that it was a black mammy singing to her white plantation owner's son. It just evokes summertime to me.

Here in Phoenix we've been hit w/high temperatures. It's making headlines, it's all over the Internet, blah blah blah. Hello? We live in a desert. What are we expecting summer temperatures to be, the same as San Diego or Portland, Oregon?

C'mon.

Summertime in Phoenix always brings out my greatest memories. Playing 1, 2, 3 Redlight and Red Rover underneath the street light with Little Richard and his sisters. This was before the Leyvas moved in and I fell madly in love with the middle boy, Ruben. This was also before we had street lights every four homes.

When I was growing up each block had one corner street light. About ten years ago the city decided to plant a light in the middle of the block as well as lights at each corner. Gone were the dark places to steal kisses or furtive hand holding. Gone were the superior hiding places. The street lights brought all us kids together. Now almost each family has its own light and they seldom want to share.

Summertime was also filled with church meetings. In my church organization churches are divided into "districts" and each "district" would have annual fellowship meetings. My father, being the social preaching butterfly that he was, and because we never did too much other than go to church, attended every "district meeting" and dragged us along.

Most of the meetings occurred during the summer. The churches had no air conditioning back then but everyone was still required to dress to the nines and be joyful. While the Saints were shouting and danced in those crowded, hot churches, we kids would be outside sneaking to the corner liquor store buying pickles, pops and potato chips. My parents never minded us leaving church grounds as long as we were back in time to hear the 'message'.

Summer nights were romantic to me. I remember all the smells of summer. The unique aroma of heated concret. The smell of lawns and orchards being irrigated. Freshly cut grass or fragrant oleander bushes. and most of all, the smell of freshly wet dirt.

So, while everyone's complaining and griping about the heat, I welcome it. Heck, what else can I do? Move to Boise? Nah, have you seen the temperatures up there?