Over the last 31 years, summer has meant different things to me. Until I was 16, I spent every summer in Cedar Key with my grandmother. Days were hot, and every afternoon at around 3 pm you could count on a summer shower. It wouldn't cool things off, just make you really sticky. But Cedar Key was as safe as a small (very small) town could get. My cousin and I would go all over town on foot or bike, to the park with the beach, or to Helen's Place to play the jukebox and maybe get some french fries. For a while there, Helen even had a pinball machine and the sit-down Pacman game. I learned to make baskets at the summer program at the school and went once a week to Manatee Springs with the group. The water was exceedingly cold, the current swift, and the funnel cakes delicious.
When I was sixteen my grandma taught me to drive. My mother had tried, but pulling out of the carport, I hit a trashcan. She immediately called a halt to the exercise mumbling something about nerves and proclaiming she wasn't equipped to handle this-or something to that effect. So, my ever-patient grandmother began lessons the day after my arrival. I learned on a backroad of which there were plenty. She even demonstrated how to kill a snake with a series of accelarations, braking, and backing up to start all over again. This may explain my driving skills.
After graduating from high school at seventeen, I got a job at the Marriot in Panama City. It was fun, and left me plenty of time in the afternoons to hit the sand and work on my tan. I made friends with a coworker, Laurie, and she introduced me to beer, pool, The Real World (the original one), and Beavis and Butthead (Frog Baseball, Dog baseball, etc.-classic). She lived behind the Rack-N-Que and knew the owner who didn't mind that we were underage. Years later, I found out that my husband used to hang out there at that same time, as well. Small world. Around this time, my sister was coming into her own, and I began to realize that maybe she's not just the annoying brat I'd always thought her to be. For sure, she was (and is to this day) still a spoiled brat. She admits it. But I found she's also pretty cool to hang out with, and she's really very sweet and sensitive.
Fast forward to my early twenties. I moved to Tallahassee to get away from the Chipley thing only to discover many of the people I was trying to get away from had moved here as well. Luckily, I don't meet up with them often. There's nothing really wrong with them except for the fact that they know some of the things I've done that I'd not like to make public. Anyway, I got the first real job of my life at Monk's Office Machines as a copier technician. I don't mind telling you I was desperate so I wore a "fitted" dress to the interview. Not trashy, mind you. I got the job and there met a couple of my best friends, one of which, was Jennie. She and I were unlikely friends-me, the partier, her the married with two kids variety (even though we were the same age). We'd load up and go to Mashes Sands nearly every weekend. The goal was to get to St. George Island, but we gave up halfway. We'd hit the beach and go all the way down to the end where there's a little cove the kids could play in and we could go topless. One would get to drink some beer while the other was on watchout for the kids and in charge of the long drive home. And after a day in the sun and water, it was a long drive.
Around this time, I met my husband. That's another story. He's not really fond of the beaches that had been such a big part of my life, so we don't go as much. I find myself longing to just go and sit early in the morning on the beach and listen to the calming waves. Along came the kids and responsibility. I don't get much time to just hang out anymore. Now, summer, to me, is a small plastic pool in the back yard with a 5 year old boy and a 10 month old girl, dogs running from the splashing, sitting on the porch watching, and just enjoying the lazy, warm late afternoon. Sometimes, if I don't think too hard, I can find peace and hear the calming sound of the waves amongst the tinkles of laughter floating in the air around me. After all I've done and all the "fun" I've had, I now realize that it's just as much, if not more, fun to watch your children grow and learn and just be children. Ah, that takes me back to a simpler time. I think I'll go stick my feet in and play with my kids.
