Catch a memory on a summer breeze

An end to summer….but why? There is a breeze about summer, in your surroundings and in your thoughts. Things should be easier in the summer. The breeze will take your thoughts and run with them. You go coatless, often shoeless, but never go thoughtless. It’s your thoughts on a cool summer evening that can be developed into creativity, whether it’s a book, a story or a piece of art. That is the thought process to unfold. Are you thinking about summers past? Summers to come? Or just trying to capture that feeling of summers from long ago? Regardless of the time frame for your thoughts, it’s time to capture it. When you were younger, you didn’t think about summer. It just happened. You ran in the fields, wandered in the woods or waded in a stream. You caught grasshoppers, toads or baseballs. You swung a racket or a fishing pole. You slammed the screen door behind you on your way to catch up with your friends, peanut butter sandwich in hand. In today’s electronic culture, it is hard to imagine the simplicity that we once applied to summer. Today’s kids have social media contacts, ringtones and instant messaging and texting. Do they really connect with each other or the good weather and surroundings around them? Try to capture your summers for a future generation. Remember just sitting on the lawn waiting for your turn at the latest lawn game? Did you sit at your parents’ vegetable stand waiting for the next customer or were you serving lemonade? Were you sitting atop the hay truck as your father or grandfather wound the tractor through the field? Did you hang out in an empty barn with the cows or horses all out in the field? Your summer, my summer was different than it is today. We weren’t worried about the “boogey man” who might snatch you away. We weren’t expecting our schoolmates to turn up missing or injured at the hands of a stranger. We ran to the ball fields, the swimming pool or the nearest beach or swimfront, without a thought beyond what time do we need to be home. We worried only that we might end up with yet another peanut butter sandwich if we missed “supper” and not dinner as it is more commonly called now. We know no one wants to be told about “the good ole days” or “back in my day,” but maybe a short story or anecdote will catch someone’s ear. Maybe remembering and relating can spark a new activity or adventure for this generation. Maybe they really do want a picnic for supper. Maybe they would like to snip beans being prepared for freezing or canning. Maybe they want to know how you could live without a PlayStation or Netflix or even Facebook. Maybe they don’t want to know right now, but perhaps as they grow older and begin to read what you have written of your memories. But they can only do that if you write them down. And you can only write them down if you stop and remember. Catch a breeze before summer is gone. Catch a memory in your thoughts and write it down for another generation.

Thank you for a GREAT summer!

I heard myself complaining about my BUSY summer lately. My apologies. It has been a GREAT Summer for connecting, re-connecting and socializing with family, friends and acquaintances. And for those of us in the Northeast, the weather has been agreeable, albeit slightly hot and humid, but more than tolerable compared to the devastating drought they are experiencing in the mid-west and west. If you are someone who I have been in touch with through some summer event...Thank you for your contribution to my summer experience! And don't be surprised if you find yourself incorporated into some future blogpost as I weigh my thoughts and options in the future. My point in this post is simply to make the connection between experience and memory. I had the opportunity this summer to reconnect with family members and friends, some of which I had not see in years. In fact, forty-five years in the case of my classmates at a recent class reunion. If you haven't been to a class reunion, I urge you to go. You will be surprised at how people have changed, not just physically, but socially. If you had classmates that were not exactly your peers during the high school or college years, you will find them all equally excited to see you regardless of whatever socio-economic or cultural differences you may have had in school. It really was great fun to compare notes on where we've been, the connections we now share that may have developed in the interim as well as new pursuits we may now share. Just getting together conjures up memories of what you once shared, if not equally at the time, then collectively for having been there in the same time. One classmate related his experiences at the local candy store and drugstore fountain, neither of which are there any more. Although we may not have been there under similar circumstances or times, we shared the experience of the people who populated those businesses and we all remember the unique circumstances of going there. The little old lady, who sat by the candy window, and watched as you filled a small bag with penny candy and then watched equally intent as you counted out your pennies into her hand. At the drugstore, we all got our cokes or ice cream from the same group of ladies that always seem to know more about us and our families than we could ever understand. When Hillary says it takes a village to raise a child, she could easily been talking about our town in the 1960s. You couldn't take the "wrong" kind of book out of the library, for fear the librarian might call your parents. You couldn't misbehave at the drugstore or the candy store for the same reasons. While we may have thought we were simply anonymous as we paraded from business to business "downtown", there was always someone who knew us and what we should or shouldn't be doing. After more than 40 years, that's part of history, local history and your personal history. I urge you to "write it down" now while you're thinking about it. Maybe you can share it at your class reunion, or on your Facebook page with your new and old friends, or simply with your children or grandchildren who may be convinced you had a boring childhood. I know without asking you had an interesting childhood, whether you related one experience or many. We all did and they are all worth writing down for local history and personal history, and there are many formats to do so...here as a blogpost, on Facebook, on your town's history pages, in an historical society newsletter or maybe a special connection with your local newspaper. You can also write yourself, your children or grandchildren a letter to share now or in the future, to convey part of who you are, and the chidhood that made you who you are today, and perhaps some of the values you hope you transferred to your offspring. Soon, I'll get back to writing more of my experiences, back to a couple of memoir book projects of my and others experiences. I RETIRE in September...finally it's my time to remember and Write... I hope you'll have time to do the same.