GUEST COLUMN: Summer's just not the same now

“It is a great imperfection to complain unceasingly of little things,” said St. Francis de Sales.
I agree with the unceasingly part but how about occasionally? Regardless, I’m going to whine a bit.

Summer is not as much fun as it used to be.

I used to love to swim. Now I’d rather walk on the beach than run into the waves. I sit by the pool and dangle my feet in the water and watch the children swim, a spectator rather than a participant.

 I hate that.

My hesitance is pure vanity. Ladies who don’t look so great in a swimsuit usually don’t take to the water like little carefree ducks. But I remember a thousand summers when I loved to swim, when the water was an irresistible magnet.

My peers and I wore one-piece suits, quite modest, and never imagined such a thing as a bikini, certainly never the little scraps of fabric worn by those gorgeous models in People magazine. Jealous? Not me — only green. If I looked like that, I just might frolic around in the waves also.

Swim caps were also popular — surely didn’t want our hair to get wet. They were ugly swim caps and we looked awful in them, even fancy ones with plastic flowers on them. Most of you have never seen such a thing. That’s good.

Pretending I was Esther Williams, I practiced synchronized swimming in my one-piece suit and flowered cap. That Esther was something in the pool — so graceful and could even smile underwater.

At the ranch, we basked in the sun like contented frogs when we weren’t actually in the water. (What’s all this with frogs and ducks?) From a speaker hooked up to the juke-box, popular music of the day flowed out to the baskers, swimmers and lollygaggers, down to the creek and up to the hills. Such a part of summer days I can almost hear it still. Pure bliss.

If you remember “Kansas City,” “Bye-bye, Love,” Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blueberry Hill,” “Maybelline,” “Earth Angel, “Sixteen Tons,” and “Yakety- Sax,” you’re likely to forgive my whining about summer now as compared to way back when.

“Take out the papers and the trash ... yakety-sax ... don’t come back!)
Candy and cokes by the pool made life just about perfect. All drinks were called cokes. Dr Pepper, Delaware Punch, Orange Crush, Big Red and something purple (Grapette?) were the best. Combined with the regular Hershey bars, Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, etc. were names such as Big Hunk, Mars Bar, Pay Day, Zero, Bit o’ Honey, and not exactly candy bars, but oh, those Moon Pies and Corn-Nuts.

All drinks and candy were kept icy-cold in the refrigerator in the game room. Bought wholesale by the case from Cash and Carry in Odessa, we hauled them to the ranch and sold them for 15 cents, eventually going up to a quarter.

Then as the sun dipped westward in golden splendor up the creek and the world cooled down a notch, we soothed our sunburns with Noxzema crème and fixed supper, then washed the dishes in a dishpan and wiped them dry with a dish towel.

Even after we had window units in the bedrooms we were told that it was not healthy to sleep with an air-conditioner on, so we depended on a breeze through the screen or slept on the porch.

Summer should be the best of times for kids.
It was for me.

Chandler is a retired teacher, librarian and
author. She lives in Dryden.