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The Fading of Summer by Father James Behrens
I do not remember a summer as hot as this one. The heat bore down day after day for more than two months. I did not think much about the warm summers when I was a kid. I suppose it was easy to be indifferent to the heat when the playful times of youth had more of a claim on my interests. These days, I find that the heat affects how I feel and the amount of energy I have. The heat drains me. By day's end on a hot and humid day, I am ready to call it quite and sleep the night away. When I was in high school I often went to the Jersey shore. I went with other kids--one of us would get the family car for the day and off we went. Often there were six of us in the car.there was more often than not no air-conditioning in the car, so we rolled down the windows and headed south on the Garden State Parkway.Song after song blared from the AM station on the car radio. When I hear some of those songs, now called "Oldies," I am brought back to those summer rides.
We used to hit different places-Belmar, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park, Point Pleasant.We would park the car and leave the windows open, so the heat would not be as suffocating when it came time to head home. Then we headed down to the beach. We rode the waves and napped on blankets. If we were in Seaside Heights, we would go to the boardwalk at night and take in the rides, play the games of chance that were all along the boardwalk or just walk along with the crowd. There were colored lights galore, lights on the rides and on the game booths, lights in the many small eateries that sold all kinds of food and drinks. People walked along, many with little kids in tow and carrying the stuffed animals they had won. It was a wonderful place.There was a huge swimming pool near a large arcade. There was a stage near the pool and at night there would be bands and dancing.
The evenings were often cool with a nice breeze blowing in from the ocean. We never stayed beyond ten o'clock or so since it was a long ride home. We were quiet on the way back, tired from the salty air and the sun. But it was good, those rides home, the sights and sound of the boardwalk having worked their charms on us "city kids."
Writing about this, I am grateful for those times. I do not remember the heat or any discomfort--just the good things.
And maybe in a few months I will look back on this summer and the heat will have long since gone. There have been a lot of good things these past weeks, things yet too close to me to work their charms. But they will, they will grow to entice me, and make me glad for these days,these days of late summer when I found the pleasure in writing of long gone waves that somehow still rise and hit the beach, and the Ferris Wheel that may yet still rise above the pier and go round and round,high above the ocean and the crowds.
I will go back there someday. A summer's day. It may be hot but Iwill seek shade in the day and walk along the pier in the evening,gazing about me and taking in the lights and smells, the laughter and sights of summer. things--wonders, really--that have been with me all my life. I once needed a ride to find them. But they were always within me and come to life in the heat of summer.
Posted by Debra Classen at 9/13/2010 9:48 PM 
Categories: Reflections
Tags: Father James Behrens reflections
Categories: Reflections
Tags: Father James Behrens reflections
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