"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." -- Dr. Seuss
Can you believe a full quarter of the year has come and gone? Damn! And I still have a "to do" list with January items on it (no joke). How does that happen? Somewhere between that semester you finally decide to stop playing quarters EVERY night and the one in which you were informed, "yes, you must choose a major," time changed its' speed. Or perhaps the shift occurred during the moment you moved from boyfriend to baby's daddy (or vice versa). Or when it was clear you weren't pro-league material. Or when you started working for the money and not the passion. Whatever the circumstance, there exists one precise tick...and previously perceived dragging gains momentum, hurtling towards some unknown finish line on the course of Life.
Thanks to MTV and BET we can still secretly participate in brief "Spring Break" wild-outs, but remember when "summer recess" was an eternity? I recall living my break in sections, even in years the school calendar was extended due to winter's snow days. My fall discourse on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," usually filled up two or more pages. Because, as kids, we had appointments, sessions, play-dates; agendas much more full than the average adult's daily life.
For me, summer would kick off with day camp, at a local parks & rec, where I'd spend every weekday, sunrise to sunset, lining up for games and arts & crafts and foot races and swimming with my camp friends (different group than school mates and the block heads). I know now our parents were nuts, leaving us under the supervision of counselors only a few years older, but it was activity-based babysitting, and above all, FREE...and we all survived without major incident.
Next up would be a visit to relatives: great-grandparents, et al. "down south;" my wayward cousins in the D (just the right letter for the "city" slightly to the right of Chicago), or a timely family reunion somewhere far-flung to finally meet the "cousins your age." (A good thing this reunion was too, lest I find myself chatting up a tall, athletic second-cousin at a function somewhere...my family's got some great genes...) If there was a birth or a death, these were celebrated and condolenced also, but I was both lucky and savvy enough to skip hospitals and funerals for the majority of my childhood.
Then there was time to convene with the block crew to trade stories of the summer's happenings to date: How'd you get so dark? What happened to your leg? Did you kiss anyone yet? This was about the halfway point during the long break, so days were still crazy hot, filled with trips up to the public pool, hanging out at the corner store, UNO and spades games on the porch. Our nights were spent chasing fireflies, the ice cream man and each other -- well, in "Catch A Girl/Kiss A Girl," me and the ladies were either running for our lives, or playing slow and feeble on purpose.
A couple summers, I worked. I don't even wanna remember how this started. As a kid, jobs are like tattoos: once you get one, you get hooked. And even though I worked for mere pittance, there's something about earning your own chump change that is quite empowering. That wears off quickly.
I never had to go to summer school to make-up any coursework, so I used the time to get ahead. Somehow, I routinely worked in visits to museums, multiple trips to the library, and sometimes enrolled in cool classes that covered creative disciplines like pottery, photography and architecture. City programs kept me busy some summers: I once attended the famed Illinois Institute of Technology as a participant in an engineering program where I learned binary code and how to dismantle circuit breakers. Uh-huh. (It was during this time I also became a video game junkie and schemed my way home more than once after tricking away all my bus fare.) I read books and completed reports for my mom (where they do that at now?), and I was made to finish the newspaper every day as if my life depended on it. One summer, my task was to learn the city...and if you've ever visited Chicago, uh, this wasn't easy. But, CTA student pass in hand, I boarded the bus and caught the "L" train to destinations my mom doled out in advance. In a short while, The Kid from the far Southside ("ten-tray," so the psuedo-Blackstone Rangers on my block called it) could comfortably roll through Hyde Park, South Shore, Englewood, the Westside, the Gold Coast, Six Corners, Evanston and beyond.
Back in the neighborhood, there were block parties popping off, and our own ave's was okay, but the adventure (read: drama) was on streets unknown. We would bike our way over to an Aunt's or Grandmother's 'hood to check out cuties on other streets, where the inevitable scrap often went down with other chicks who wondered who invited us, where we came from and why we were checking out - and getting play - from their dudes. And when we weren't on the block, we were at the mall, in the park, or at the summer fests, like Taste of Chicago or house music institutions like Sauer's, Mendel or Funky Buddha Lounge.
And let's not forget ball! Chicago is nothing else if not a basketball town, and that goes way back before Michael Jordan, although his legacy totally cemented it. Summer leagues and pick-up games dominated our late summer days and nights. Local playground legends and D-leaguers battled it out with the seasoned pros and "school boys" in gyms across the city, stands full and attentive, like any regular-season NBA game. With scholarships, roster spots, sports page placement and street cred at stake, the baller community was a-buzz -- and so were we!
July would barely leave the calendar before stores would begin to insult our intelligence with displays of school supplies and ads about back-to-school sales. As the First Day loomed, our last days were consumed with preparation: lists and practice and work-outs and try-outs and speculation and anticipation. And the calendar would repeat: the first day, football/band season, Homecoming, final exams, Thanksgiving, Winter Break, etc., etc. But this used to be in a package called Forever. Time took "forever" to pass; it took "forever" for days to come.
One day, in college, between laughing and drinking at a party one night and yawning/crying during a pop quiz in lecture the next day, "forever" left me. Everything that used to take so long to arrive now came in an instant. I blinked and turned my head slightly and I walked across a stage with the diploma I'd just arrive to work towards; the parents who'd only the day before moved me into my dorm were applauding as my name was read and my tassel was turned from right to left. I didn't know it then, but the two odd fellows sitting beside my folks were Time and Forever, waving goodbye. I didn't need that calendar to mark the passing time anymore; holidays would from now on be a reprieve or long weekend to sleep halfway through. Other activities saved to experience vicariously through my niece or future children: back-to-school shopping, school recitals, karate competitions, prepping for prom...
It's not exactly fair that "forever" leaves us way before most of us are ready to truly appreciate the time, but it preps us for realities, like in love, for example. We come to learn that it's really true that nothing lasts that long, and if we're wrong and it does, love might not be the thing we choose for the extended period (I myself would choose summer vacation; forever on a sunny beach with a drink in hand sounds good to me). The lesson learned is that since nothing lasts, use it, live it, remember it. Few things beat sitting around with friends and relatives talking about "the good old days" and the memories we'll have "forever..."
