When I was a kid, I actually was not a big fan of summertime. I was a nerd. I liked going to school and thus missed the classroom. There was no local swimming pool to cool down in my area of the South Bronx. We had our fire hydrants and we delighted in that. However, it surely wasn’t something I looked forward to throughout the year. It is not as if I said, “oh boy can’t wait to play in the fire hydrants this summer.” Furthermore, I was poor and didn’t go on any summer vacations. I never even heard that phrase until the 10th grade. Then I started catching popular culture’s summertime depiction in movies such as Grease and Dirty Dancing. What a glorious thing this summertime seemed to be. D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the The Fresh Prince smoothly sang about the wonders of summertime where they noted
Summer, summer, summertime
Time to sit back and unwind
A few decades after my teenage years and I still don’t get that song. Sadly. Do many people have time to sit back and unwind during the summertime anymore? Sure, there are family vacations. Yet, what happens before and after vacation time? You work a ton beforehand to put things in order. Then you come back and have a ton of work just piled up on your desk and email inbox. Its a no-win situation, really.
Nonetheless, I like the summer. I like to step outside and soak in the sunrays. I like getting my vitamin D directly from the world. I like the heat. And while I get inundated with work due to vacation timetables, I do like the fact that the office, at times, empties out. I like the street festivals. I like being able to just hang in the park. I like waking up to the sun. I like the fact that when I leave work, for the most part, the sun is still out.
Now, however, I have the face the reality that summer is almost over and I feel like I am in mourning. The time has come and is almost gone, in a New York minute. I do not feel like I have been able to sit down and relax. I have moved. I have hosted guests. I have gone to Disneyland. I have traveled to Africa. I have stayed up working for long nights on end. I am not too sure when I had a chance to sit down and just be. Just sit. I am hoping to go catch a movie or two this summer. But the time is rapidly coming to an end. To be honest with you, I do not know if I can even sit still for two hours to watch a movie.
Summer may not be a time to sit down and unwind. It may be a time for us to move, move, and move before the dark days of winter come.
Bye bye summer. Lets keep running till the end
Categories: childhood, Children, Culture, current events, new york, Pop Culture, Psychology, workplace
psychologistmimi 
I totally understand where you’re coming from, Mimi. My parents were also poor, and my Dad worked very hard to support his family. Like you, I, too, enjoyed going to school. At that time in the past, there was no such word as “nerd.” I spent much of my time sitting at a big desk in the basement, writing and sending hand-made crossword puzzle books to the Red Cross to be distributed to the wounded soldiers. I felt great pleasure in doing that. No summer vacations until my Dad saved up enough to send my Mom and me to the Catskills for a month at a rooming house. I remember him boasting that he went without lunches in order to do that. Memories…..
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I can relate. I loved school and even on summer break, I always entered the summer reading challenge held at my school. Much more enjoyable reading than running around outside. 🙂
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I am missing summer terribly, this winter has been so wet and cold, but spring is just around the corner for me, quickly followed by summer,. Which I am sure will pass as quickly as yours
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When I was a boy, summer meant 3 months of staying up as late as I wanted to watch midnight movies. Going to school and associating with other kids was stressful. This meant 3 months of not being stressed. I hated the cold so this meant 3 months of freedom to spend the day outside, often far from anyone’s eyes where I could get up to assorted deviltry. Three months of free time to devour all the books I could lay my hands on.
My father worked all day, most days, and my mother hardly opened the front door. I had hundreds of acres of woodland and abandoned fields with a river flowing through it to call my domain. The road we lived on was a narrow gravel track that had maybe one car an hour go by. Our driveway was perhaps a hundred yards long. Doesn’t get more free-range than that.
I had a friend who lived a mile away and a cousin who lived a mile and a half. If I wanted to visit a (nonstressful) human being, it was a easy walk.
Then we sold the old place for a pittance and moved into a trailer park in a larger community and a whole different life. It sucked; but you adjust, adapt and find new ways to survive.
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Oh wow, the house did seem like a wonderland of freedom.
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