Best Summer Ever...

I was reading my favorite blog last night from a young lady, who as it turns out lives about 50 yards from me.  I ran across her blog as I was looking at people from the Raleigh area.  Hers immediately popped out because she is such an amazing writer.  So since finding her blog, I check it every day to see what she's written.

Her latest entry was about her best summer.  And that got me to thinking about my best summer.  To be honest, I can't remember a good or great summer.  I haven't truly had a summer in over a decade.  Once you get out of school, summer is reduced to the hot months of your working year.  Any notion of a summer vacation is quickly shot down.

I have had some pretty good times during the hot months.  Some good concerts, some good beach trips, some good nights out at the bars.  But trying to pick a favorite summer from start to finish is a tough one...

I turned 16 on June 6th, 1989.  I was the only one out of my group of friends to have my license. I was the oldest guy in my entire grade basically, so the rest of my buddies still had many months before they could drive.  

There were 6 or 7 of us in our group.  We were the rowdy ones.  Already smoking and drinking and smoking pot.  Trouble makers, you could say.  And we hung out with a group of about 8 girls in the grade right below us.  We had some good girl friends our age, but we mostly hung around with those 8 girls. 

So every night I'd pick up all my buddies and then pick up the girls.  I had an Isuzu Trooper 2, and it was usually packed every night.  And after I'd gotten everyone, we'd just drive around, smoking cigarettes and listening to music.  And in my memory this was the greatest of great summers.  

Its very foggy now because that was 20 years ago.  The memories are like flashes of a dream.  I can't hold on to anything tangible.  But the bits and pieces always make me smile and warm my heart.  Those were good days.  Days before any of us new the troubles and stresses of being an adult.  Days before we had any cares.  Days that seemed to last forever.

I went to boarding school the fall after that summer.  That was long before the internet.  Hand written letters were the only means of communicating with all my friends from home.  And I thankfully saved every one of the letters I got for the 3 years I was away.  So I can go back now and read letters that my friends wrote just weeks after that magical summer ended.  And they all make me smile.  The make me smile the kind of smile that you feel way down deep in your heart of hearts.  Memories of youth.

That was a good summer................