Hot Summer Days. Hot Summer Nights

Days and Nights to remember . . .

   This week’s heat wave thrust me back into the world of the hot days of my youth. I’m not sure, and I chose not to do any research as enough of it is being done already, but it seemed we had many more hot days when I was young. I think it’s because we lacked air conditioning, and my perception of heat differed. I wanted it to be hot because hot meant summer vacation, beach, pool, boys club, and sprinklers.

Age 11. can you believe it/

   The heat bounced, shimmered, and ascended to vapor on our city street. Wally said, "You can fry an egg on the sidewalk.” We cooled at the Olneyville Boys Club, a river, a pond, or under a sprinkler.

   “Listen to those sewing bees,” Wally said. The elusive creatures droned with a familiar fever pitch; another sign of summer. I looked for them in vain on the wires hanging between telephone poles that marched in rows along the sidewalk. Was it a dragonfly or a sewing bee?

   The mixture of the smells of summer; hot tar, a hint of the dump, the steam from the rain, the smell of rubber, the green of a cut lawn, the paint of a freshly painted house,  dust from the street,  dirt of the garden and the sweat of a game penetrated the neighborhood and smacked me when I exited my house. Even though heavy with the smell of heat, there was a freshness in the air.

   Tar balls were a street product made by pushing a stick into the softened street and rolling it into a ball. Rolls became as big as a baseball and then hardened in our cool cellar. The tar stuck to my hands, pants, and shirt and annoyed my mother. I threw the balls away.

   The splattering raindrops changed things. They intensified the reflection of the sun that bounced off the street; their vapors carrying a steamy smell; a unique chemical as fresh as a peach, and as stale as a musty cellar. I learned later in science class that it was the smell of ozone; oxygen, O3, with an extra molecule.

   I welcomed the rain as I ran home to put on my bathing suit, to cool under the drops while enjoying the mist that hit me in the face and the smell that penetrated my nostrils. I was part of it; running, twisting, silently singing, “I love the rain on a hot summer day. I feel clean, fresh, and free.”

   I looked at the downspouts trickling like a small spring. I thought, “That sounds so nice.” Tar balls, rain, and ozone defined the hot summer days.

   At night, I lay my head on my pillow, feeling the softness of a warm breeze and listening to cicadas, droning at a different tempo. I thought about summer days while wishing the night away. But the nights were different. 

   Summer nights in the third-floor bedroom of the three-decker on Wealth Avenue were hot. The sewing bees stopped sewing and the lightning bugs slowed down on their evening soirees.

   Our bedroom was a clammy oven. To sleep, even though shirtless and sheetless, was impossible. A rampart of homes was so close that no breeze if one ever came along, would consider trickling in. Nonetheless, those nights lent themselves to comforting neighborhood reminiscences. How? By the murmuring voices of the adults close by.

   The heat drove them to their porches. Hearing soft chatter from the floors below, Peter and I decided to explore, to follow the murmurs and soft laughter, even though we had orders to go to bed.

Peter (R) and I in front of that infamous porch

   Attracted by the sound of bees to honey, we snuck down the stairs to sit on the porch floor, invisible, or so we thought, off to the side. Mom, Aunt Della, and Grandma continued their chatter. Dad, Uncle Carlo, and Grandpa were absent, trying to sleep in anticipation of their early morning rise.

   As I remember, Mom was in her pajamas, Aunt Della in a nightgown, and Grandma, though in a housedress, broke her formality by wearing backless black slippers and no stockings.

Gives you some idea of Grandma’s formality (white shoes). Here she is at the beach on a Sunday

   Layers of stars above dotted the crisp, clear night. Bugs flickered to tap a nearby streetlight’s metal hat. Low talking rumbles came from neighbors sitting across the narrow street or next door, doing the same thing, chatting away the heat.

   Nothing we heard was of interest to us. Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Della seemed to be repeating the same things they already talked about during the day. However, being there, liberated, was enough.

   The sounds were soothing and comforting. People made the best of the hot evening, understanding they were all in the same circumstances. The heat was tough, but not as tough as the workday, not as tough as making their way in a new country.

   We sat still. A soft breeze rustled a paper in the street. We smushed mosquitos and rubbed off the blood ever so gently. We wanted to hang out, to be a part of the neighborhood’s family, to endure the heat together.

   "Time for bed kids." Ah, they noticed. No squabble.

   Up the stairs and back to the oven, we trudged. I got in bed and looked at the clock. It was eleven. At last, we dozed to the ongoing music of the voices below.

   I loved those summer days and nights.