Summertime

We are about to jump into my favorite season - Summer.  It is already summer where I grew up.  Temps in the high 70's  - low 80's with sunshine etc, and of course the weekend warriors driving down from Philly and over from DC to enjoy the Delaware beaches.  When I was growing up the official start to summer was Memorial Day Weekend. My mom would break out her white shoes, and purse, as well as pants, as did Dad.  They were stylin' let me tell you.  It used to take the whole month of June to get warm enough to even think about starting our favorite family sport known as Olympic Beach Sitting.  That entailed packing up a  picnic lunch,  and  the Coppertone suntan lotion - the mere thought of it makes me think of that wonderful smell - it was the smell of summertime. I liked #4. We also packed up the beach umbrella, a cooler of Shasta sodas and usually a bag of Fritos.  Once we got to the beach mom and dad would give me some change to go to the snack bar and get pixie sticks and Lance crackers.  I always got new flip flops and a new bathing suit, and of course we'd have to visit Mr. Frank Fox's 5 & 10 for new sand toys, bucket & shovel and watering can.   Summertime was wonderful.  We loved the beach.  Olympic beach sitting was so much fun.  After we got there, we'd stay all day long.  If you got sunburn, you'd put zinc oxide on your burnt parts and sit under the umbrella with a t-shirt on.  We'd go home as the sun was going down.  Sometimes we'd go later on in the day and stay and go water skiing in the evening.  Dad would trot up to the Dairy Queen and get hamburgers and hotdogs and my uncle would bring his boat around and the adults would ski and the kids would splash and play at the water's edge.  Those were good times!  We didn't worry about much back then.

Here in Portland things are a bit different.  Summer is usually delayed until the 4th of July, but after that look out! It gets warm and bright.  Sunshine everyday and it stays light out side until after 10 at night.  Even when it's a nice hot day (high 80's) I still usually have to warm up in the hot tub before we head home because it cools off so fast. Humidity is just non-existant here.    Kaysie and I are fortunate enough to have a nice pool where we live.  It's one of the big reasons why we have been here for so long.  Instead of beach sitting, we do Olympic Pool Sitting.  We pack up snacks and a cooler of drinks and the waterproof UNO cards, and we stake out our spot.  For the first few years we camped out at the umbrella table in the shallow end.  Now that Kaysie is a very good swimmer/diver/flipper we camp out at the umbrella table at the 5' end of the pool.  Sometimes we go early and stay until dinner time, sometimes we go later and stay until dusk and cook out on the gas grill that our community has for its residents to use.

Tonight we made the pilgrimage to buy our stock of summer bathing suits, cover up, flip flops new pool towels, suntan lotion and swimming goggles.  There was also a waterproof football and Kaysie wanted her own pool bag.  I put a bottle of #4 Coppertone Suntan lotion in the cart for later in the summer when I'm a little browner and can afford the #4 SPF.  I took the cap off when we got home and inhaled that wonderful smell...that smell of Summertime and decided that I'm very glad it's here - even if it's only for the weekend!