The weather says heat is on its way, 80’s for the next few days. I guess the dog days of August have made it just under the wire. Schools around here start next week. The paper listed their start days this morning. That always meant the end of summer for me, but I never really minded. My favorite time of year was coming.

During summers, when I was growing up, meals were haphazard. We were always coming and going, even to being outside after the streetlights went on. Dinners were simple, usually hot dogs or hamburgers, corn on the cob, popsicles and every now and then my mother’s famous peppers and eggs. We were never a green salad family. My mother made potato salad. My father loved homegrown tomatoes, and he used to cut one up, put the slices on a plate, add a spoonful of mayonnaise for dipping and have it as a side dish at dinner. We kids ate as quickly as we could so we could get back outside. Sunday family dinners were put off until cooler weather.

We spent countless weekends at the beach. The picnic basket was always filled with sandwiches, fruit and cookies. The tartan jug held bug juice. My mother seldom ventured off the blanket. She’d sit and watch my sisters. My brother and I roamed. My father swam in the cold water while my brother and I waited until low tide so we could swim in the warmer, tide pools. I remember walking on the rippled sand to get to the deep pool. The houses across from the beach were huge, and I always wished I could live in one of them and wake up every day to hear the gulls and see the water. My mother used to get annoyed if we tracked sand on the blanket. I remember a wet bathing suit, a towel around my shoulders, my butt on the blanket and my legs and feet in the sand. The last bites of food always tasted gritty.