The Best Season

This summer, I’m rereading To Kill a Mockingbird with my future grade 11 students. A few nights ago, I read through the following passage. With two days of school remaining I found myself itching for the freedom of summer.

“Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”

As I read through Scout’s recollections, I couldn’t help but wander back to memories of my summers as a child. For me, summer was
-spending almost the entire day outside and in the barn.
-congregating at the local pool with friends, going home for dinner, and then returning back to the pool for the final two hours of its daily operation.
-playing t-ball (I’m not much of a team sport participant. I didn’t make it past t-ball.).
-going to at least one Cardinals’ game at Busch Stadium. We usually took my dad’s humongous silver Thermos and packed snacks in the cooler. There were times when we were fortunate enough to get ice cream served in a helmet bowl.
-listening to Jack Buck call the Cardinals’ games on KMOX. We usually listened to this on the way home from the Cardinals’ games as my parents liked to leave early to avoid the post game traffic jam or on one of the drives through the country.
-driving through the country to look at the crops. My sisters and I didn’t mind because we knew we’d start the “drive” with a trip to Dairy King to get an ice cream cone complete with sprinkles. We were content to be in the back seat listening to KMOX.
-a yearly trip to Six Flags. I still remember riding the Screamin’ Eagle with my sister and my dad for the first time.
-riding bikes with Jacquelyn (I distinctly remember one summer where we’d always cut through the back pasture to get to Rt. 50 and ride to her house. Ah, junior high memories.)
-a sweaty night at the Muny taking in an outdoor musical in Forest Park (I remember seeing Oklahoma! there as well as a ‘best of Broadway’ concert by Sarah Brightman).
-a few trips to the zoo, Grant’s Farm and the museum under the Arch.

Over the course of the last several years, summer always seemed to bring change, prep work necessary for the next year of teaching, and a short trip to China. Last summer as I began to set my sights on China, it seemed as if my family was taking a trip back down memory lane as we took in the Clinton County fair parade, several Cardinals’ games, Miss Saigon at the Muny, and countless trips to Dairy King (oh, how I miss cherry Ski!).

Throughout this second semester, I’ve found myself longing for the relief of summer and hope in some ways that summer will be my best season and not just full of “everything good to eat”, but everything that is good.