Author: William Douthwaite

I’m a summer kind of person. While most of the people around me in Florida are complaining about the heat, I’m enjoying the warmer weather. I love the feel of the sun on my skin, getting sweaty while walking or working outdoors, and warming up after I’ve left a frigid air conditioned room. I know, I might feel differently about this if I cut lawns all day or roofed houses. Maybe not. I’ve always like summer.

A newsletter recently asked its readers to share their favorite summer memory. Summers are when there’s no school and families often take vacations. I have some great summer memories.

In junior and senior high school, my music teacher directed a summer band program, open to anyone of any age who wanted to come and play. We weren’t preparing for a concert. We got to play a lot of different music. Early on, you got to play with the big kids, musicians who were much better than you. When older, you got to show the noobs how it was done. It was just a lot of fun and the days and weeks were never long enough.

I spend most of my high school and college summers working concessions at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia. That meant I got to see a whole season of home games and get paid for it. Most of the time, I was a cashier on a level that looked out over the field from behind home plate. Customers came in-between innings, so we got to watch most of the game. Oh, and eat whatever mediocre stadium food we wanted.

One year, instead of taking us away on vacation, my dad put up a swimming pool in the backyard. Our yard was a hill, so we first had to level out an area. I think the was only about twelve feet across and maybe three feet deep. Not olympic-sized, but we didn’t care. My brother, sister, and I spent a lot of that and the next few summers in that pool.

Band camp before my senior year in high school is burned into my memory, too. That was the first year of a week-long sleep-over camp devoted entirely to preparing a halftime show for the fall. Music and marching all day, volleyball games in the off times, and way too little adult supervision in the cabins. Perfect formula for summer memories.

I have one negative summer memory. I was in fourth or fifth grade, and my dad took us to Ocean City, New Jersey for a week of vacation. At that time and in that place (suburban Philadelphia), families vacationed at the Jersey shore. He didn’t even get to pick the week. He got vacation when his company shut down for two weeks.

Anyway, my parents enrolled us in a vacation bible school that week to get us out of their hair every morning. In hindsight, they were geniuses. But in the moment, we thought it was cruel to drop us off with a bunch of strangers while they enjoyed their vacation. That VBS was actually a two-week program, so we got off easy. I know how exhausting one week is. I can’t even imagine doubling that!

In the summer, families get to spend more time together, and I’ll bet that’s what forges some of our best memories.