Mobile Summers

June Bug
By
Debbie Lindsey

June, n. [L. Junius, perhaps from Junius Brutus; same root as junior, L.
juvenis, a youth; E. young.] The sixth month of the year, containing 30 days.

Perhaps I am able to romanticize June, and the summertime it heralds, because today as I sit here typing it is still spring and the warmth is perfect. I know I will curse and whine come July and worship before the alter of my air conditioner praying that the decades old window unit will continue to wheeze some semblance of cool air. I will threaten to check into a hotel just to sleep through one sweat-free night. Plants will require a staggering amount of water. Mosquitoes and fleas will proliferate. And my vacuum cleaner will cower as tumbleweeds of dog and cat hair shed throughout the house. But June, June has promise.
Spring, of course, is when it all begins—the rebirth, nature waking up from the doldrums of winter. And June gets caught up in that fresh growth spurt before the relentless heat starts to override some of the euphoria. But as a kid did we even notice the heat? Searching my summertime memories I don’t recall the heat being a deal breaker. All us kids just couldn’t get enough of being outdoors. The world was our oyster and we didn’t give a flip about how warm the waters were.
Not being anything close to studious, the only great thing about school was how appreciative it made me of summer vacation. I didn’t take summer lightly, I had priorities: three months of bare feet; dodging Mom and becoming one with my inner Tarzan (Mom didn’t take kindly to me climbing forty feet into treetops or swinging from rotting vines across ravines); and, of course, swimming.
My hero was Tarzan—the real one, Johnny Weissmuller. I could never differentiate between actor and character. Weissmuller was Tarzan. And all school year, while other kids focused upon the chalkboard, I watched the black and white clock above it. I would time myself against its second hand and practice holding my breath. My goal was two minutes, as that seemed to be about the time it took Tarzan to wrestle an alligator under water. My brain cells fought to survive this exercise and so one minute was all I could muster. This was all practice for my personal summer Olympics.
When I was eight my summers really picked up. That was when I began to realize my full potential as a tomboy. It was also the summer my family moved to the new frontier—the suburbs, and ours was the best kind, a not fully developed neighborhood where unspoiled land still outweighed manicured lawns and track homes. And like most kids I saw adventure in those woods rather than future real estate. I hated every “sold” sign that claimed a piece of our stomping ground. Yet we had to wonder what a new family might bring to the mix. We were a pragmatic lot, my new friends and I, we knew each new home would bring more kids, bikes, basket ball hoops and parents to mooch snacks from. And wonderful as nature might be, a swimming pool trumped a wooded acre everytime.
The Gales, our neighbors down the street, had a swimming pool. Of course I adopted them. It was high time that I learned to swim and I had a new swimsuit so the Gales became my extended family (I’m not sure if they viewed this arrangement as a win/win). From the moment school let out until well into September I swam. My addiction to swimming pools with their intoxicating scent of chlorine, the gentle humming of a filtration system, and the mesmerizing blue of their depths did not begin in the Gales backyard but it grew there.
The Grand Hotel at Point Clear, Alabama, had the largest pool in the South. And our family was lucky enough to snag a pool membership there off and on through the years. Day trips to this hotel pool are among my most treasured memories. But nothing could beat a pool within striking distance of my front door, full of neighborhood kids splashing, laughing and playing endless games of Marco Polo. We stayed in that pool until our skin puckered, sneaking pees in the water so as not to waste a moment drying off to run inside (“You kids better not get my new shag carpet wet”). And there ya had it: you just weren’t allowed to pee in the Grand Hotel pool.
Like I said before, I have no recollection of oppressive heat marring my summers. Of course I had no idea what a “heat index” was and that I should be feeling much hotter than the thermostat outside the backdoor stated. And really, did I care? I had trees to climb, forts to build, chlorine to ingest and just a world of trouble to get into.
I never really stopped being a tomboy, but the summer of ’67 I promised myself would be my last summer to beat up boys. This was a sport I loved. I was approaching the eighth grade and I’d finally figured out how to snap my bra rather than having to fasten it beforehand and wiggle it over my head and shoulders. So I knew it was time to live up to the standards of womanhood and simmer down a notch.
Summers began to change after that. I don’t remember feeling sad when I began to switch from being lacquered in grimy sweat and skinned-up knees tattooed with those extra large Band-Aids into a deodorized, Coppertoned, and shaved legs teenager. My abandoned bicycle rusted away somewhere in back of the tool shed. And I guess Mom happily tossed out my baseball cap and red clay stained cut-offs. My swimsuits began to change to accommodate fashion (and some semblance of breasts). And the urge to beat up boys began to lessen.
Yes my summers changed and if memory serves in any small way to reveal what was real and true then I must say I left the better part of myself behind as adulthood began to reach out to me. And only years later did I find my place upon a bicycle again laughing at how easy it still was to remove my hands and coast, steering only with sways. Swimming never left me and sometimes during my laps I stop and dive under and see how long I can hold my breath and wait for the alligator.

Comments: Debbie@whereyat.com and Talesofthequarter.blogspot.com