Hot summer days

Memories of summer days flash like heat lightning at twilight – showing vague outlines, gently brightening, quickly fading.

Charley Pfiester and I crouched in the fine dust at the corner of his house, in the shade of a giant maple, peering intently at the conical indentation the size of a dime in the light brown powdery soil.

“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire! Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire!” we chanted in unison, first one, then the other – persistently, not giving up. Slowly, slowly the silt at the base of the cone began to shift, push up in the middle, A tiny mound in the tiny cone formed in starts, stops, starts – each push of the duped doodle bug escaping his burning house creating wonder for two bored lads on a summer day.

Charley and I did our share of doodlebug calling. Charley claims to have called one all the way out one time, but I was never that bored. There were apricots to beckon. They were big and fat.

They hung on the limbs of the forked tree in the side yard, the one Mrs. Pfiester was forever telling kids to stay out of until she gave up. It sat too good. God made that tree to sit in.

A pan of apricots went across the fence for an apricot cobbler. A bowl of apricots went down the hill for an apricot pie. For all the warnings: “Stop eatin’ those apricots!” and “Ya’ll are goin’ to get sick eatin’ all those apricots!” and “You’re goin’ to run into a worm!” – apricot eating continued on until the tree was bare those summer days.

Moms would send kids over to Mr. Winkler’s or down to Bess Hazel’s Blue Plate Grocery Store for a quart of Purex or a gallon of Ideal milk or a loaf of Bunny bread. (A rabbit rode a horse, played a guitar and sang a jingle: “That’s what I said, Bunny bread.” We sang it, too).

The drink box at Mr. Winkler’s was a pleasant trysting place for the weary traveler from home. Always plenty of Barq’s root beer, Nehi grapes and strawberries, RC’s and Chocolas. Sometimes a big orange would be just what you wanted and Mr. Winkler’s box would have one cold and waiting. Tony Payne won two dollars once under the cork on his Dr. Pepper cap.

Of course lots of Milky Ways and Hershey bars were available in the ice cream box with the Popsicles, the Push-ups and the Cho-chos; but you’d better get what you wanted and get out of it.

Miss Hazel had a spool of string rigged on a coat hanger wire with the end of the string dangling through a fashioned eyelet. She tied up purchases of side meat and baloney wrapped in brown paper.

A few in the crowd decided to see how deep a hole they could dig in the railroad field. It became a fair-sized neighborhood project before it was over. The talk predictably centered on digging to China before it turned to the great dangers inherent in a project of this magnitude, particularly after a ladder was needed to descend the great depth.

Certain advantages became apparent. Stifling and muggy vapors lifted from the thick weeds of the field, but it was cool in the hole. At an admirable depth there was much discussion of heading the excavations sideways. Main diggers could have their place to go be alone. They could put cardboard on the floor, take a candle down there, maybe mix vile poisons from milkweed and pokeberries and squeezings from unknown species.

But nah, that wasn’t any fun. Better to go watch Mr. Weber turn on the streetlight in the back alley. Let’s play hide and go seek, kick the can, wave out, or hum-bum runway. (“Ink, ink a bottle of ink, what color do you choose?” “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”) Let’s hook our feet in Buck’s fence railing and lean back in the lawn chairs, pretend this is an airplane – not just any plane, but a big plane.

Then the calls came. “Tooonnnyyyyy!” “Toooommmmyyy!” “Charles Lewis, you git in the house! It’s dark as the dickens out here!”

True, nostalgia brings memories likely not as true as they seem. Carried to extremes, it can cause heartache. But a taste now and then has a sweetness, a goodness, a serenity. It can soothe a troubled soul on a hot summer day. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on August 2nd, 1987