Summer Memories

[GNTLGNT]

So sorry to hear that. My condolences to you and Tracy.

....thank you buddy.....tired of the Reaper coming to visit.....

 

[Spideyman]

....things at my homestead are pretty well wrapped up for now-just have to get things moved along when the auction takes place next month.....the stress as it stands currently is from trying to get everything moved from our current house...23 years worth of accumulated crap, and to top it off-Tracy's step-dad passed last week....not been a good few months.....

Thought sent out to you and Tracy.

 

[GNTLGNT]

Thought sent out to you and Tracy.

 

[Moderator]

....things at my homestead are pretty well wrapped up for now-just have to get things moved along when the auction takes place next month.....the stress as it stands currently is from trying to get everything moved from our current house...23 years worth of accumulated crap, and to top it off-Tracy's step-dad passed last week....not been a good few months.....

Please pass along my condolences.

 

[GNTLGNT]

Please pass along my condolences.

....I sure will Marsha.....Tracy's mom is proceeding through the normal stages of grief, and Tracy is handling it pretty well, but she has her back surgery recovery to keep her mind off it....and she has come along amazingly from that......grumpy from not being able to do anything.....

 

[Neesy]

....I sure will Marsha.....Tracy's mom is proceeding through the normal stages of grief, and Tracy is handling it pretty well, but she has her back surgery recovery to keep her mind off it....and she has come along amazingly from that......grumpy from not being able to do anything.....

Hope she can get up and about soon - I know how tricky it is dealing with a grumpy one!

 

[wolfphoenix]

Well, like I said, †ha†s when GRAN came to the door......wanting to know what I was doing.

"What are you doing??", she asked through the cracked open door behind me. The mower had been off for sometime, and through the living room windows she probably hadn't seen me walking around sweeping up in awhile. So she just HAD to come check on me.
"Taking a break." I said curtly. I was about 26 or so at this time, but she still persisted and insisted on treating me like I was 12.
"Don't break that glass!" she snapped, and the metal latch of the glass outer storm door abruptly clicked closed again.
Like always, I sighed with justified irritation, and with some of my old friend sad exasperation. I reached over and pushed my cooler alittle further back against the wall under a window, to keep it well out of her sight. She wouldn't come out on the porch, I knew. It was hot. The house was nice and cool, and her days of working out in the Texas summer heat were long over. And only me, God and my good dead Granddad know just exactly how that fine woman deserved those days to be over, done and gone.
I put the brief irritation and exasperation away and resumed the nice undisturbed moment of rest I was having.
The sporadic light breezes were drying my sweat wet T-shirt. It was a faded navy blue color, and tell tale white streaks and rings of salt left from the evaporation were starting to appear in cotton cloth. They were saying that I really had worked that day, and it added to the satisfaction of that really good bone tired feeling. The seeing of how good my front yard was looking added to it too. I had to smile, I was happily lord/lady of what I surveyed. My small spot on this loved world.
I decided then that the hardest work that remained to be done, would be putting the mower and gas can back in the shed, and bringing the broom back in the house with me. But til I got ready to do that, I was determined to drink a couple of the Bud tall boys I had stashed away in my cooler. I leaned back and pulled one out, keeping it front me between my bootheels, just in case she was looking out the door worrying that I might be having a good time. I could usually feel her watching before I heard her coming.
Neighbors were filing down the street here and there, coming home from work. We all had friendly nods and quick waves and smiles for one another. Drinking that first icy cold beer was relaxing, and I was really starting to enjoy the evening. One of those small pleasures...just siting on the porch resting and watching the world go on around you.


(more later. Phones ringing and I have to take this call. And the dishwasher demands to be emptied. )

"Porch Sittin' " I think thats one of the reasons why Judd in Pet Semetary is one of my favorite King characters.
I don't think I'll be finishing this recollection.

 

[ghost19]

....things at my homestead are pretty well wrapped up for now-just have to get things moved along when the auction takes place next month.....the stress as it stands currently is from trying to get everything moved from our current house...23 years worth of accumulated crap, and to top it off-Tracy's step-dad passed last week....not been a good few months.....

Please give Tracy my condolences sir and I hope both of you are getting on as best you can.

 

[wolfphoenix]

Do you have a summer story you'd like to share? Did you get married in the summer? Did you get dumped? Have a funny story? Poignant? Whatever...please share it here.

I'm reminded of childhood summers on the river. Windy and hot days spent fishing for bream using bologna or bread balls for bait. I was nine or ten and my cousins, weary from splashing and diving off the pier, bobbed like turtle heads in the dark lazy wake. I could hear them talking but mostly long periods of quiet; maybe a whine of a distant boat motor or a squeal of laughter from the pontoons dotting the horizon.
The Pure Prairie League is on the boombox singing 'Amie' and I see my dad arch his back to reach into the foam ice chest for a beer. Wearing only cut offs and sporting a Burt Reynolds mustache, he pops open a can of Miller and squints up into the sun. With half a grin he shows a flutter of recognition as mom walks up in her bathing suit. "The dead has arisen," he says, pulling her into his lap and planting a kiss on her bare shoulder.
Her hair was wet from earlier but drying in uneven curls. "The ham is on low and slow, didn't mean to nap so long." She sat next to him and placed her feet on the deck railing. Drying blood and fish scales glimmered just beneath her from where my uncle had cleaned his morning catch.
We all ate with gusto that evening. Ham, potato salad, Wonder bread and Ruffles chips. A pickle on everyone's plate. In the watery dusk my cousins lit sparklers and walked down to the marina. I stayed behind and watched my parents slow dance to 'Love Is Alive' by Gary Wright. In the shadows I was all but invisible. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Im just going to do it anyway.
4:30 AM on February morning:
Bacon and eggs sizzle on the stove and dad hollers "time to get up, Nome!". Still groggy and lost in the depths of last night's dream, I reluctantly stumble toward the smells wafting through the house. This house is my favorite, it's a gambrel with barn red paint and black shutters, complete with a babbling brook running across the front boundary, stopping at the driveway segment, and a river down the embankment in the back. The beaver dam crosses that river at leads to what I used to imagine was an island, rather than a peninsula.
That day the house is filled with half brothers, colleagues from dad's old job in Caimbridge, my cousins and nephew (older than me).
I'm the first one up and dad hands me coffee, cream, and tells me to get my hat and coat, my mittens and the toboggan, for we are headed to our favorite winter fishing spot: "way the hell and gone up to Bowdoinham." It's at least a four hour drive from Derry, but well worth the trip. The fishing is always good, but the little store on the way will have Jolt cola. . .

I am glad to see Nomik is back, I hope she will come here again and write again for us.
She's got my follow.

Doc Creed, I really do admire how you are able to put so much vivid information into such brief posts.

Ghost, Grandpa and others have contributed great pieces of memories as well.

Looking forward to the MORE from all.

 

[Doc Creed]

I am glad to see Nomik is back, I hope she will come here again and write again for us.
She's got my follow.

Doc Creed, I really do admire how you are able to put so much vivid information into such brief posts.

Ghost, Grandpa and others have contributed great pieces of memories as well.

Looking forward to the MORE from all.

Thanks, Wolf. You place me in great company.

 

[Dana Jean]

It's a hot day today. Driving around, thinking about things while running errands I thought about this moment in my life.

Now, being old, I've told this here before. But, as an elder, I have a right to tell the same story a bazillion times like you've never heard it before.

When I was 18 and my best friend was 17, we went to a party one night. Big bash, everyone who was anyone was there and of course there was alcohol. We also had empties in her car which we never did. We ALWAYS got rid of the evidence before hitting our destination. Picture a group of girls, on a ditch bank, pitch black night, downing our beer or wine as fast as we could and then throwing the trash out. (Yes, bad teenagers).

Anyway, this night, we didn't do that. Well, the cops come and break up the party. So, we all left. My friend and I continued our alley-catting ways and about 4 hours later, at the end of the night, she has to drive right by the party we were at earlier to drop me home.

We make the brainiac decision to check out the scene one more time so, we turn down the street and a police car is sitting in the shadows. And we are stiff as boards, talking to each other, facing forward, going slooooowwwwwww just to get by this guy. We think we're out of the woods when boom! lights come on. There was a police car waiting for us at the end of this street. Pull us over, see the empties and put us in the back of the cop car. Also in the cop car were two of our guy friends who also made the bad choice of checking the party out again.

All of us are in this cage in the back of the car, yukkin' it up, singing Stuck in Folsom Prison and thinking we are just badass funny.

We get to the station. The funny stops and the "I-think-I'm-going-to-s*it-my-pants" reality sets in. The Chief of Police takes my friend and I immediately into a room and starts talking to us. He also hands each of us a JUVENILE form to fill out.

I am now sweating bullets. Because I'm 18 and said I was 17 to the officers. So, my friend was yakking to the cop while filling out her form and I'm sitting there getting sicker and sicker. He's watching me. Of course. Finally after about 15 minutes of not doing anything, I finally said,

"wonder if I wasn't 17?" And he said, "How old are you?" I said, "18." He said, "Why did you lie to me?" I said, "Because I was scared."

He then starts listing all the s*it he can get me for, contributing to a minor blah blah blah, so many things he was saying. I'm pretty sure murder was in there somewhere. He gets to the end of this very long diatribe, and I ask very softly and humbly, "Are you going to do it?" And he sits there and quietly looks at me for what felt like forever and finally said, "I'm going to think on that."

Well, obviously he knew that I was feeling the guilt and would've gladly flogged myself while howling the blues if he would've let me. He purposely made me sweat it out. It was his turn for the yukk-in'.

About a half hour rolls around and he comes in and says, "I'm going to let you go." You know that sweet relief that floods people? Yeah. I felt that in that moment.

My friend though, being underage, had to call her parents to come get her because of curfew. No breathalyzer, no DUI anything.

Man....we had fun.

 

[Notaro]

It's a hot day today. Driving around, thinking about things while running errands I thought about this moment in my life.

Now, being old, I've told this here before. But, as an elder, I have a right to tell the same story a bazillion times like you've never heard it before.

When I was 18 and my best friend was 17, we went to a party one night. Big bash, everyone who was anyone was there and of course there was alcohol. We also had empties in her car which we never did. We ALWAYS got rid of the evidence before hitting our destination. Picture a group of girls, on a ditch bank, pitch black night, downing our beer or wine as fast as we could and then throwing the trash out. (Yes, bad teenagers).

Anyway, this night, we didn't do that. Well, the cops come and break up the party. So, we all left. My friend and I continued our alley-catting ways and about 4 hours later, at the end of the night, she has to drive right by the party we were at earlier to drop me home.

We make the brainiac decision to check out the scene one more time so, we turn down the street and a police car is sitting in the shadows. And we are stiff as boards, talking to each other, facing forward, going slow just to get by this guy. We think we're out of the woods when boom! lights come on. There was a police car waiting for us at the end of this street. Pull us over, see the empties and put us in the back of the cop car. Also in the cop car were two of our guy friends who also made the bad choice of checking the party out again.

All of us are in this cop car, yukkin' it up, singing stuck in folsom prison and thinking we are just badass funny.

We get to the station. The Chief of Police takes my friend and I immediately into a room and starts talking to us. He also hands us a JUVENILE form to fill out.

I am now sweating bullets. Because I'm 18 and said I was 17 to the officers. So, my friend was yakking to the cop while filling out her form and I'm sitting there getting sicker and sicker. He's watching me. Of course. Finally after about 15 minutes of not doing anything, I finally said,

"wonder if I wasn't 17?" And he said, "How old are you?" I said, "18." He said, "Why did you lie to me?" I said, "Because I was scared."

He then starts listing all the s*it he can get me for, contributing to a minor blah blah blah, so many things he was saying. I'm pretty sure murder was in there somewhere. He gets to the end, and I ask very quietly and humbly, "Are you going to do it?" And he looks at me and said, "I'm going to think on that."

Well, obviously he knew that I was feeling the guilt and would've gladly flog myself if he would've let me.

About a half hour rolls around and he comes in and says, "I'm going to let you go." My friend though, being underage, had to call her parents to come get her because of curfew. No breathalyzer, no DUI anything.

Man....we had fun.

Ah the good old days...I bet you miss them

 

[Dana Jean]

Ah the good old days...I bet you miss them

I had so much damn fun. When did I turn into a scared old lady?

 

[Notaro]

I had so much damn fun. When did I turn into a scared old lady?

Welcome to the club

 

[cat in a bag]

It's a hot day today. Driving around, thinking about things while running errands I thought about this moment in my life.

Now, being old, I've told this here before. But, as an elder, I have a right to tell the same story a bazillion times like you've never heard it before.

When I was 18 and my best friend was 17, we went to a party one night. Big bash, everyone who was anyone was there and of course there was alcohol. We also had empties in her car which we never did. We ALWAYS got rid of the evidence before hitting our destination. Picture a group of girls, on a ditch bank, pitch black night, downing our beer or wine as fast as we could and then throwing the trash out. (Yes, bad teenagers).

Anyway, this night, we didn't do that. Well, the cops come and break up the party. So, we all left. My friend and I continued our alley-catting ways and about 4 hours later, at the end of the night, she has to drive right by the party we were at earlier to drop me home.

We make the brainiac decision to check out the scene one more time so, we turn down the street and a police car is sitting in the shadows. And we are stiff as boards, talking to each other, facing forward, going slooooowwwwwww just to get by this guy. We think we're out of the woods when boom! lights come on. There was a police car waiting for us at the end of this street. Pull us over, see the empties and put us in the back of the cop car. Also in the cop car were two of our guy friends who also made the bad choice of checking the party out again.

All of us are in this cage in the back of the car, yukkin' it up, singing Stuck in Folsom Prison and thinking we are just badass funny.

We get to the station. The funny stops and the "I-think-I'm-going-to-s*it-my-pants" reality sets in. The Chief of Police takes my friend and I immediately into a room and starts talking to us. He also hands each of us a JUVENILE form to fill out.

I am now sweating bullets. Because I'm 18 and said I was 17 to the officers. So, my friend was yakking to the cop while filling out her form and I'm sitting there getting sicker and sicker. He's watching me. Of course. Finally after about 15 minutes of not doing anything, I finally said,

"wonder if I wasn't 17?" And he said, "How old are you?" I said, "18." He said, "Why did you lie to me?" I said, "Because I was scared."

He then starts listing all the s*it he can get me for, contributing to a minor blah blah blah, so many things he was saying. I'm pretty sure murder was in there somewhere. He gets to the end of this very long diatribe, and I ask very softly and humbly, "Are you going to do it?" And he sits there and quietly looks at me for what felt like forever and finally said, "I'm going to think on that."

Well, obviously he knew that I was feeling the guilt and would've gladly flogged myself while howling the blues if he would've let me. He purposely made me sweat it out. It was his turn for the yukk-in'.

About a half hour rolls around and he comes in and says, "I'm going to let you go." You know that sweet relief that floods people? Yeah. I felt that in that moment.

My friend though, being underage, had to call her parents to come get her because of curfew. No breathalyzer, no DUI anything.

Man....we had fun.

This reminds me of this one time....

I was out on my own but not yet legal drinking age. Had all my gang over, we had beer, of course. I had one set of neighbors who enjoyed calling the cops on me. When I was trying to break Brandon from the bottle, he screamed and screamed and screamed. They just knew I was murdering him. They called the cops. Well, I lived in a tiny town. The cop was just "Gordon." Everyone knew him, he knew everyone. I invited him inside to check on Brandon on that occasion. Told him I was not giving him a bottle anymore and he was only voicing his displeasure. He came in and looked in on Brandon, who had by then quieted down and gone to sleep. All was good....

But back to my party story. The same neighbors called Gordon that night, too. I think we had the stereo too loud. So, Gordon comes, knocks on my door. We freak out and try to figure out where to hide the beer. We settled on inside the dryer.

I answer the door, Gordon asks what we are doing, I say just hanging out, and he marched right through my house and opened the dryer, plucked out the beer and said, Just hanging out, huh?

Not a one of us was legal. He let us all go. I'm sure he watched my house the remainder of the evening to make sure no one drove. But we all got off with just a stern talking to.

 

[Dana Jean]

This reminds me of this one time....

I was out on my own but not yet legal drinking age. Had all my gang over, we had beer, of course. I had one set of neighbors who enjoyed calling the cops on me. When I was trying to break Brandon from the bottle, he screamed and screamed and screamed. They just knew I was murdering him. They called the cops. Well, I lived in a tiny town. The cop was just "Gordon." Everyone knew him, he knew everyone. I invited him inside to check on Brandon on that occasion. Told him I was not giving him a bottle anymore and he was only voicing his displeasure. He came in and looked in on Brandon, who had by then quieted down and gone to sleep. All was good....

But back to my party story. The same neighbors called Gordon that night, too. I think we had the stereo too loud. So, Gordon comes, knocks on my door. We freak out and try to figure out where to hide the beer. We settled on inside the dryer.

I answer the door, Gordon asks what we are doing, I say just hanging out, and he marched right through my house and opened the dryer, plucked out the beer and said, Just hanging out, huh?

Not a one of us was legal. He let us all go. I'm sure he watched my house the remainder of the evening to make sure no one drove. But we all got off with just a stern talking to.

That's great. You should have screamed, "Do you have a search warrant?" "Illegal search and seizure!" AT-TI-CA! AT-TI-CA!

 

[wolfphoenix]

This reminds me of this one time....

I was out on my own but not yet legal drinking age. Had all my gang over, we had beer, of course. I had one set of neighbors who enjoyed calling the cops on me. When I was trying to break Brandon from the bottle, he screamed and screamed and screamed. They just knew I was murdering him. They called the cops. Well, I lived in a tiny town. The cop was just "Gordon." Everyone knew him, he knew everyone. I invited him inside to check on Brandon on that occasion. Told him I was not giving him a bottle anymore and he was only voicing his displeasure. He came in and looked in on Brandon, who had by then quieted down and gone to sleep. All was good....

But back to my party story. The same neighbors called Gordon that night, too. I think we had the stereo too loud. So, Gordon comes, knocks on my door. We freak out and try to figure out where to hide the beer. We settled on inside the dryer.

I answer the door, Gordon asks what we are doing, I say just hanging out, and he marched right through my house and opened the dryer, plucked out the beer and said, Just hanging out, huh?

Not a one of us was legal. He let us all go. I'm sure he watched my house the remainder of the evening to make sure no one drove. But we all got off with just a stern talking to.

like that
nicely written
u or 1 of ur gang hidden stuff in dryers b4?
or were the curtains open b4 he appeared?

 

[cat in a bag]

That's great. You should have screamed, "Do you have a search warrant?" "Illegal search and seizure!" AT-TI-CA! AT-TI-CA!

Oh, to be young and naive again!! I couldn't figure out at the time, how he knew we put the beer in the dryer. But as an older, (wiser ) woman, I realize how. I just had sheer curtains on the door. The front door was directly opposite the back door, which led to a small porch, where my washer and dryer sat. He probably WATCHED us stash the beer in there.

 

[cat in a bag]

like that
nicely written
u or 1 of ur gang hidden stuff in dryers b4?
or were the curtains open b4 he appeared?

No, we had never done that before!! I thought it was genius!!

 

[Dana Jean]

Oh, to be young and naive again!! I couldn't figure out at the time, how he knew we put the beer in the dryer. But as an older, (wiser ) woman, I realize how. I just had sheer curtains on the door. The front door was directly opposite the back door, which led to a small porch, where my washer and dryer sat. He probably WATCHED us stash the beer in there.

Damn cops and their sly investigative skills!