Memories of summer not this hot

Man it’s hot.
We’re in a heat dome or some other sort of weather phenomena that’s making me tired and not want to go outside.
I drove by the West Burlington pool Saturday afternoon and it took me back to a time when the pool, which was about six blocks from my house, was our summer hangout. We’d either be there swimming for three to four hours a day, or we’d be sitting on our bikes with a grip on the chain link fence to balance ourselves, talking to friends who were at the pool.
This was in between baseball practices and little league or “pony league” games.
Summer certainly seemed to last a lot longer as kids. Everyone remembers waiting for the final bell in May to release school for the summer. Before we even got home that day we were making plans around the annual family vacation and scout camp over at Camp Eastman.
The family vacation was usually a camper and tent extravaganza to some national park or to visit family in Arizona, Colorado, or Minnesota. At first, it was just camping and the parents got the big 8-person tent and the boys were laid like logs in the pup tent. Hotels or motels were completely out of the question. We fished and camped, played games in the big tent, and remarkably survived some vicious thunderstorms.
One year in particular, we were camping at 7-Ponds at a camp site that was next to a pond. A storm moved through that was so severe, we all piled into the big tent and, like idiots, held onto the poles from the inside in fear of the damned things blowing over on us. I remember loud thunder and big booms of lightning. My great-grandmother had come along with us and we had bought a cot for her to sleep on. Water from the rainstorm was rushing down the hill to our campsite and flooded the tent. Great grandma was laying on the cot which was just about two inches above the water that had leaked in through the zippers.
We survived and, in the morning, got out the propane stove and made breakfast from the groceries in the cooler that had floated up against a tree.
We had to chase down a canoe that had blown into the pond and floated away, but all of our fishing gear was right next to the tree where we left it. Never really understood that one.
The rest of the summer was spent at friends’ homes and at the ball fields behind the school and then behind the swimming pool. A great summer Saturday was heading to the fields after a bowl of cereal and a day full of baseball with kids from around town.
We would play game after game, and it would be double-or-nothing until we had enough kids up to play a full game. We recruited everyone that showed up. Most came on their bikes with their gloves threaded over the bicycle handle. Very Sandlot. We even had the catcher’s mask and chest protector from an old coaching bag my step-dad kept on hand in the garage.
If we weren’t playing baseball, or when we were done, it was always a trip uptown to the local 7-11 for a Big Gulp and a hot dog. Then we peddled home and would fall asleep on the floor in front of Joe Garagiola and the Game of the Week. Back then the Cincinnati Reds were the draw because of the Big Red Machine, but the Cubs got their fair share of broadcast time, as well.
Then in the evening, when the sun rolled off the western horizon and the temperatures would drop, we would either walk or take our bikes to the Bees' game in Burlington. There we would chase foul balls and girls in baseball garb. Most of my friends wanted to walk all over the place, but I was huge baseball fan and my favorite part of that was when I had a few more dollars in my pocket and could get a box seat. I loved baseball and genuinely wanted to sit and watch the game.
The sound of the baseball off a wooden bat and seeing players that may soon be on a baseball card was something I was interested in. I loved calling safe and out, balls and strikes, and I got to be pretty good from the bleachers. We would shag foul balls. We used to get a quarter if we tracked them down and took them to the clubhouse office.
Summers were long bike rides into Burlington to see other friends we had made in the sports arena and Memorial Auditorium dances.
Then in the latter parts of the evening, it was stretching the phone cable down the stairs for a private conversation with one girl or another until Mom got up for whatever reason and saw the phone line pinched in the basement door frame. She would open the door and tell me to get off the phone and get to bed. That stood as the first warning and I would try to move myself away from the conversation so I could hang up, but it rarely worked. A second warning would come. “Chuck, are you still on that phone?!”. “Uhhh….. yeah?”
“I want you off that phone and in bed in two minutes” – the second and more firm warning. I knew a grounding from the phone would come with a third warning, so I had to dismiss the call and get to bed as ordered.
The next morning. Brush teeth, eat cereal, go to garage to get my bike, bat, and glove, and head to the park before going to the pool, 7-11, and around town before darkness set in.
All of these are great and exhausting memories, but I honestly don’t remember it being this hot. My eyes constantly burning as sun block drips in with the sweat. Just stepping out of the house where I have my thermometer set at 73, is almost unbearable. The 102-degree temp inside the truck takes a quick getting used to before the air gets breathable. The good news is that this too shall end and, before you know, it we’ll be back in school with fall's breathable air around us, and boys playing football, while girls play volleyball and tennis.
In the meantime, as usual, everything can just slow way down – but that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck. Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.