BOYS OF SUMMER by Craig Ruhl

by Craig Ruhl

Today is the first day of June, a bright sunny North Carolina kind of day. The first day of summer is not for another nineteen days, but I can feel the promise of those lazy warm days wafting across the patio on a gentle breeze. This year will mark my seventy-third summer. As I reminisce on summers past, I also look forward to many more to come although they will feel different from those of my childhood.

My earliest memories of summer are of days filled with childhood outdoor play with neighborhood friends. Mom would shoo my sister and me outdoors as soon as breakfast was over. The family house that I first recall was in a housing tract, or subdivision as some would call it. Our house was a single story on a tree-lined street with a sidewalk and a concrete driveway. On the side of the house sat a large wooden sandbox with bench seats across the corners. My dad rigged an umbrella over the play area to provide a bit of shade. We could lower it to cover and protect the sandbox from rain, snow, and the neighbor’s cat who liked to use it as a litter box. It developed our immune systems early, playing in that sand. Several of my young friends would come over to play with me and my sister in the sand, sometimes pushing toy trucks through the sand and sometimes making sandcastles with little buckets and water from the garden hose. Yes, we also drank from the hose, which aided in strengthening our resistance to disease later in life.

Dad worked as an engineer in the aeronautical industry, which caused us to move every four years, depending on which aircraft company had a new contract. By the time I was in grade school, we were living in a town on the border between Kansas and Missouri. Summers in that location were blistering hot. One feature of midwestern summers that has stuck in my memory was how parched that yard would get in the summer. Enormous cracks in the ground would open, large enough to lose a toy soldier while my friends and I lined our armies up to fight. We stayed outdoors all day, only going inside to use the bathroom. Okay, to be honest, being a boy, I sometimes would just go behind the shrub bush at the back of the house. As the sun moved across the sky, we would shift our play area to take advantage of the cooling protection of the shade along a side of the house. Mom would come out at lunchtime with sandwiches, milk, and a cookie. Often, she would spread a blanket in the shade and join us kids for a picnic. I am sure she welcomed a chance to escape the heat inside the house. In the evening, after dark, we would sit on the screened-in patio, praying for a breeze and playing board games until bedtime. On very hot and still nights, mom and dad let us sleep on the wooden chaise lounges. Fun times!

Our next home was outside Detroit, Michigan. Dad went to work with Ford as a sound and vibration engineer. I made new friends in the neighborhood and soon entered the wonderful world of sports in sandlots, backyards, driveways, and streets. The season dictated the sport. Summer was all about the game of baseball. We were out of the house as soon as we had dressed and had eaten breakfast. Groups of neighbor kids would gather in front of a designated house where we would choose sides for a game of softball, hardball, or maybe whiffle ball. The game took place in the street with cardboard squares as bases and home plate. Not everyone had a ball glove or bat, so the sides would share what they had. Our teams varied in numbers of players with sometimes just enough

to call it a game. One of my most frustrating memories from this time is of my sister, Dana, three years younger than me, being picked for a team before I was. She was that good!

It was while living near Detroit, Michigan, during the summer between fifth and sixth grades, that my parents gave Dana and me three-speed bikes, called English racers. They had hand brakes and a three-position shifter on the handlebar. Wire baskets attached to a rack behind the seat allowed for carrying my baseball glove, bat and ball, and a bag lunch. The world was my oyster now, and I was free to roam wherever my legs could pedal me. Now, genuine baseball diamonds in parks that were not previously accessible became our daily hangouts. Our horizons expanded even farther when we started making new friends from other neighborhoods who also gathered at the ball fields. Teams filled out with plenty of players available. We learned competitiveness and real-life lessons such as playing nice with others. There were no adults present to settle a dispute, impose discipline, or kiss boo-boos. We elected one kid to be the umpire, and his call was almost always final. Kids have a way, when left alone, of sorting things out for themselves. Behavior is learned, and the playing field is a great classroom. In case of emergency, one of us would pedal our bike to a nearby house, knock on the door, and ask for help. Back then, it was common to find mothers at home during the day.

When we lived in Michigan, dad took Dana and me to watch some Tiger baseball games. We had our ball gloves with us and team baseball caps on our heads. Dana’s blonde ponytail was peeking out of the back of her cap. We sat wide-eyed, waiting for a foul ball to come our way. Al Kaline, an All-Star and Hall of Fame outfielder with the Detroit Tigers, lived along our walk to elementary school. Many days, as we passed his house, he would be in the yard and would wave and chat with us kids, sometimes even signing a baseball card.

My grandparents on each side of the family lived in Chicago, Illinois. We did not get to see them often, only during a one-week vacation trip each year. About the time I was starting seventh grade, my dad’s parents bought a lake cottage near Traverse City, Michigan. That summer our family loaded up the car and headed there for our two-week vacation. Crystal Lake is a stream-fed lake a few miles from Lake Michigan. The water is ice cold year-round making for shivering swims but fantastic trout fishing. My grandpa had an old wooden rowboat tied up to a neighbor’s dock. Grandpa had equipped the boat with a small gas engine that sputtered and smoked, but it got us out onto the lake where we could fish. He and my Dad taught me to fish that summer. That year, I also learned how to row a boat when the engine conked out. Grandpa taught me how to clean the fish we caught, and how to pan-fry the filets. I never learned to like the taste of fish, but that didn’t stop me from going fishing. He also had an old wood canoe he allowed me to paddle out on the lake by myself. It was during this vacation that I developed my love of water.

When I was a kid, summers were almost as anticipated as Christmas. The day school let out signaled the start of summer, not the calendar. Long awaited vacations started, and summer camps opened. You heard the cracking sound of a baseball being hit by a bat, and the laughter of kids filled the yards, streets, and parks across the land. Many of my favorite memories are of playing baseball, swimming, fishing, and camping during my childhood summers. Life moves on, we grow older, but my memories of being one of the boys of summer will last forever.