Summertime
Now, there are a lot of great memories of
summer, wherever you're from. At
the top of my list has always been my bicycle. I still have a bike and ride it
when I can. Also, way up top the list of my favorite things, apart from the
seashore, of course, which is in a class by itself and demanded a long trip “down
the shore” when I was younger, has to be chocolate bars and ice cream. Yes,
definitely that. So the best you could do when I was a kid, was get on your
bike and ride down to the drugstore and buy a “twin pop”, an ice pop of whatever
flavor you chose, or a fudgsicle, a chocolate ice cream popsicle, which was a
dream come true on a hot summer day - or – when Jack and Jill or the Good Humor
ice cream truck would come around in the late afternoon, early evening and ring
their bell and Dad would buy you an ice cream or give you a quarter to buy
things for you and your younger brother, and you’d stand in line behind a
bunch of neighbor kids all jumping up and down and laughing with the music from
the truck and wild anticipation of the ice cream – and boy did they have good
ice creams in those trucks! There was a special sound when the driver would
open the door to the freezer. “Kerclunk” and the cold would come out – right out
at you – and the smell and the smoke of the dry ice mixed with the sweet smell
of chocolate covered ice cream would come out with it. Forget it, this was pure
happy, and miles above anything the grown ups did. They just seem to have lost
any hope of experiencing the pure joy of riding fast on your bike down a hill
or biting into a chocolate covered ice cream popsicle on a July evening. When
there was nothing – nothing at all in the way of a permanent, never ending path
through the future up and up and forever of total joy – no limit – ever.
Remember?
Well – it sure did get better!! Girls. My
G-d – Girls – what happened to all these pains in the neck and nuisances? They
got more and more beautiful – hard to believe. Did you see that? Do you know
her? Yep – an entirely new and higher plane of Happy!!
