When I think of “best summer” the thing that goes around in my mind is my son’s 16th summer.
That summer it was just him and the boyz. There were 4 of them. All summer long, running free and unfettered. The only clothes they wore were shorts. Barefoot, no shirt. If I was home they’d come tumbling in for a while, looking for food, then they were gone again.
They were happy, dusty, tanned and sunburned. They’d breathlessly laugh about their exploits jumping off “The 40” (which is an old, old rail road trestle, abandoned, that faces the river, and is about 40 feet high,) and jumping off the bridge that leads out of town into the river. they’d give me details I really didn’t want to hear because it scared me, but they just laughed. They were invincible.
I happened to work at the best place ever at the time, family welcome, and when I was at work, sometimes the boyz would just come tumbling in the back door, and show up at my cubicle, and tell me scary stuff they were doing that day, and then run out the back door before I could catch them!
They were just utterly free and they were utterly happy and they were immortal.
Part of me rejoiced, part of me was saddened because it was so beautiful, and I knew this would never come again for them. But they didn’t know that. As far as they were concerned, that summer was going to last forever.
He’s 27 now.