By Patrick Holland
If there's one thing my friends and I agree on about summer, it's the fact that no other season brings back as many childhood memories. (OK, OK, we also agree it's the best time to see babes in skimpy bathing suits the size of hot dog bun twist-ties, but that's another article entirely...)
Walking around town in July or August, you can't help but feel like a kid again seeing young children behind a lemonade stand. Remember back to the days when you'd sit out on the sidewalk for entire afternoons, ready with gallons of lemonade in case every business in town that sold it suddenly went on strike? Alas, by the end of the day you'd only sold two glasses. One was to your mother. The other was to you.
So now, seeing these young children before you, trying so hard to make a few extra cents for bubble gum or a pack of baseball cards, you're only too happy to buy a glass. Approaching them, you smile as you recognize the same Dixie cups you used to use, all filled to the top with lemonade, warm from having been poured hours ago. As you begin to search your pockets for change you cheerfully ask how much it'll cost.
"Dollar-fifty ... plus tax. And we accept Visa." No longer thirsty, you walk away rather quickly for you're about ready to vomit.
Little League (or "Field of Screams")
Chancing upon a little league game on a warm summer evening also does wonders for the memory. Try it some evening. Go to a game where you know none of the players so that your sole purpose of being there is to enjoy a harmless child's game while recalling your own little league experiences.
Besides, there's nothing quite like sitting on wooden bleachers built during the Spanish-American War, watching young boys and girls playing our national pastime as parents all around you compete to see who can scream loudest at their children, their children's coach, each other and whoever built the baseball field in the direction of the setting sun.
My own personal Little League memories are for the most part good ones. My father was my coach and was remarkably fair. Unfortunately, during my first year, that meant trying to put me wherever the other team hit the ball least.
Oh, was I bad! I played three innings a game (minimum allowed by the league) in deep, deep, right field. In the twelve games I participated in that season, only two balls were hit my way. I caught neither.
One was a screaming line drive hit by a ten-year-old named Joey, who seriously weighed more than my father. The guy was so big he didn't run, he wobbled. But WOW could he smack the ball! To this day, people in my hometown still talk about how far Joey could hit the ball and only safely reach first base.
Well, in this particular case I found myself in right field sweating Astro-turf when Joey stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. I was never one for chatting it up, but decided this was as good a moment as ever to start.
"Come on, pitcher! Strike this guy out!" I pleaded as a warm, wet trickle ran down my right pant leg. "This guy ain't a hitter!"
Smack!! High foul ball to the right side, continuing to rise in the air until it hit a low-flying Military aircraft.
"Come on, pitcher! Don't give him anything to hit!" I was screaming now. "An intentional walk may be the best move in this situation!"
Smack!! Hard foul ball into the bleachers, knocking old Mrs. Lattery off the top row onto a table full of Little Debbie snack cakes and warm lemonade. I wanted to go home.
"Come on, pitcher!" I shouted. "Beam him! Hit the batter! Go ahead, throw it right at him! What are ya', chicken?"
Smack!! A solid line drive right at me. With cat-like reflexes I stuck out my glove and dove to the ground. Phew!! Nearly hit me. Then I saw ol' Joey rounding first base. He was going for a double.
I turned and sprinted towards the still-rolling ball and realized I could stand to lose about twenty pounds myself. The harder I tried to run, the slower I seemed to move. By the time I reached the ball, Joey, a boy known to get winded unzipping his jacket, was halfway to third.
At this point in the story I might add that, as an eight-year-old, I had the throwing arm of a plate of spaghetti. As I got ready to throw the ball to my cut-off man a half-mile away, I quickly asked God to give me the arm of a ten-year-old. Amazingly, He did... unfortunately, it was the arm of ten-year-old Sally Jean Fitzpatrick, ballerina.
The ball went about twenty feet. It was such a bad throw, it landed closer to me than to the second-baseman. Embarrassed, I had to run to the ball and throw it again. Joey had hit the first, and only, home run of his life.
The next time we played Joey's team I made up for it, though. Kinda'. I somehow managed to get two hits in the game, the only two hits I had all season. Well, the first was actually a slow dribbler between the pitcher's legs (Joey was pitching), but it counted as a hit nonetheless. The second was a ground ball to the shortstop, who got confused upon watching me make contact with the ball twice in one game and therefore let the ball bounce off his shin and roll into left field. Even more impressive, I played errorless ball out there in right, aided by the fact that no one hit it out of the infield.
An Amish Childhood
But here I am going on about my Norman Rockwell childhood while you very well may not have been raised in such a traditional manner. Perhaps your summer memories are not of baseball and lemonade stands. You may have grown up in an alternative environment. For example...
Maybe you grew up Amish? (For those of you who are Amish and wish I had mentioned some other alternative group of people as an example, pretend I said, "Maybe you grew up Canadian?" Amish Canadians, simply skip to the next subtitle of this article and forget I even asked.)
So there you are growing up Amish, happy as a clam. I would guess everything in life was fine until that one day when you realized millions of other little boys and girls were outside playing with their Barbie and Malibu Ken dolls, and you were outside playing with a garden hoe and a pile of sod. (A very nice garden hoe and pile of sod, I might add, but alas, not as nice as a Barbie and Ken doll.) At best, you somehow managed to get your hands on rare versions of Amish Barbie and Ken dolls, but it just wasn't the same...
Half the fun of having a Barbie is changing her clothes (not that I would know personally) and here you had Amish Barbie with a closet full of black garments.
"Hey, let's change Amish Barbie into her swimsuit!" you said with childlike wonder. "Oh, she's already wearing it. Well fine, let's put on her prom gown! What? She's got it on? I thought that was her swimsuit? Oh, it's both. Then let's change her into her nightgown. What do you mean she's wearing it? It's a swimsuit, prom gown and nightgown?!! That's it, this is no fun. I'm going out to play in the sod for awhile."
Of course, Amish Barbie had no shapely figure to speak of, and Amish Ken had a beard that grew a half-inch every time someone mentioned the movie Witness.
Instead of taking Amish Barbie out in his Corvette, you'd have to make Amish Ken go out and hitch up his black buggy to "My Little Pony" or a couple of Smurfs. Of course, the advantage to having an Amish Ken doll was when you left him next to your Lincoln Logs at night before bed, you awoke the next morning to a well-built, sturdy barn all ready to play with...
Epilogue
Well, dear 14850 readers, here's to reflecting back on summers past. I hope you've enjoyed this little retrospective and perhaps we'll do it again someday. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to go to the beach tomorrow in skimpy bathing suits so my friends and I have something better to talk about than how bad we were at lawn darts and the elementary backstroke while growing up.
Patrick Holland, recent IC grad and winner of several coveted Jell-O recipe contests (in and around the Oregon region) has left Ithaca and plans a career writing print, radio and television ads. Don't laugh, he's really convinced he can do it. Bah, ha, ha, ha...