June’s Magic
A brief backstory about this blog post:
When I started this blog post draft it was sunny, warm, and about as June-y as June can get. The days actually sparkled in the sun and the laughter of the neighborhood kids was heralding that excitement that comes with the end of the school year. Then it all fell apart. The temperature dropped into the fifties, and it has been cloudy and rainy for over a week. Reader, I lost my mojo. But today, I decided I needed to buck up and not let the fickle nature of fronts dampen (pun intended) The Precious Days. So here we go….
It had to be June…
One of the things I am loving about retirement is my growing capacity to experience the months of the year for all the joy they possess. These months have always been there of course, along with their monthly enchantments fueled by the seasons, ancient wisdom, and my own past. The difference in the experience is both obvious (no work-world distractions) and subtle (taking the time to notice). With each month, the present moment mingles with nostalgia and the delights deepen. June is emblematic of this marriage of mindfulness and memories. From the Strawberry Moon to the Summer Solstice, it has always been surrounded by a magical aura for me. If I trace the origins of June’s captivating role in my life, I can find its beginnings in the summer of 1964.
The school year of 1963-1964 is memorable for so many reasons. It was my first year of school. First grade. What a milestone. I had an older brother in grade school and a mother who was a fifth grade teacher. School ruled our lives, and I had longed to be part of it. The year was full of excitement and historical milestones. At six years old I was afraid of a man named Kruschev. I experienced the assassination of a president in November, being told to “run home” as the news hit our school and teachers were crying, including my beloved first grade teacher, Miss Corliss. As things calmed in our classroom and 1963 turned into 1964 with school parties, Dick and Jane readers, and flips on the monkey bars, our country was not calming down. Black and white images of protests, riots, and a place called Vietnam started to populate the evening news as we put our Beatles 45s away to get ready for a dinner of cube steak and scalloped potatoes. But as a six year old, I lived in a world of Little Golden Books, Barbies, Uncle Wiggily, and first grade. I didn’t understand what a turning point 1964 would prove to be in American history, but that is an analysis for another time.
At school, the days flew by and the minutes dragged. I remember the ticking of our classroom clock, so loud when our heads were on our desks for a '“rest.” I remember the minute hand moving so slowly that I thought I’d burst with the energy stored in little legs that wanted to run, jump, and skip. And then it was June. At school, June was different. In first grade Miss Corliss patiently explained to us how the school year would soon be over. I wasn’t sure whether I should be sad or excited. But the prospect of a whole summer to run, jump, skip, and play with my friends won me over. On a sunny, warm Friday in early June of 1964, school got out early. And every single one of us was given a Hood’s Ice Cream Sandwich on our way out the door. What kind of school day was this? A few hours of cleaning our desks punctuated by an ice cream sandwich? Pure magic.
My beloved neighborhood school was within walking distance to and from all of our houses. We ran and scattered throughout the neighborhood that day. I remember hanging on to my ice cream sandwich until I reached a favorite concrete step surrounding a culvert. As I peeled the waxed paper off the melting confection, I looked up and noticed I was alone. Apparently, the other kids had gone home for lunch. Still true to this day, I needed some alone time to process.
And what a summer that June had in store for me as a six year old. Right off, June was all summer magic in 1964. It started with that ice cream sandwich on a Friday and just got better and better. The jangling bells of the ice cream truck could be heard every day. Every. Single. Day. June was a month of first swims, first fireflies, first family vacations, and first picnics. As a teacher, my mom had summer vacation right along with my brother and me. My dad was anxious to hit the road once my mother was out of school. The Land of Make Believe and Frontier Town were our first stops. Then there were the weekend picnics. All year long the metal picnic basket and the gray thermos sat unused on the cellar landing until June. Then the basket was filled with deviled eggs wrapped in waxed paper, Tupperware containers filled with fried chicken or hot dogs to be grilled, and homemade cookies. And that gray picnic thermos held the holy grail of summer drinks: grape Kool-aid laced with a glug of 7-up and copious slices of lemon…nectar of the gods.
I was so lucky to have a neighbor friend just a year younger. We were Schultz and Dooley. Me, a chubby six year old with an over-processed Toni that snapped dozens of plastic headbands — she, a cute, tiny five year, with silky blond hair swooped up by her side part into a ponytail. We spent pretty much every day of that first school vacation in the summer of 1964 together. The June days and those that followed were filled with dolls, ducks (in her backyard), homemade popsicles, and lying on our backs looking up at the fluffiest clouds in the bluest sky of my childhood. The nights were dotted with twilight happenings in between our two houses, moms talking, brothers “having a catch.” The night sky filled with fast balls and flying bats, whizzing and whirling above our heads. And on a summer night in June, there we were, Cherry and I, running and laughing at something funny only to a six and a five year old, palms pushed down on our heads like a protective cap, screaming at the bats not to make nests in our hair. Finally our moms would have had enough, and we retreated to our own sides of the driveway.
“Then add some happy children to the fields and flowers and skies,
And so you have June’s picture here before your eyes.”
As I finish this blog post, the late afternoon June sun is making an appearance. It’s time for me to fill The Precious Days of June with some new magic, suitable for a picnic-loving, sky-gazing, bat-fearing retiree.
