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Monday, September 14, 2009

Pictures of summer and other observations


The Honest Scrap Award.

The wonderful Linda from wandertothewayside awarded me this marvelous prize. Honestly, it's a good reminder that simple, authentic stories are appreciated. It is easy to get caught in the hype, the alacrity of post'm -now- whatever attitude so prevalent in ether land. Where can we go to get straight facts any more?




In addition, I want to share with her and other blog-mates who enjoyed the car pictures the poem I wrote that same day. Going down memory lane tends to move some of us.


Show and Shine

That convertible, hard
Top easily exchanged for soft top,
Bare legs on hot
Leather seats,
Sand, sun, wet suits,
Wind stringing hair
Over our faces and out the back window,
Laughter and radio drowning
All care:
Forty years of desire
Piled high in the back seat.

Now, I don’t wear short shorts
Or long hair.
Now, I don’t slide in the back seat
Of a hot car.


Rosaria

9/12/2009
What about you? What images of past summers do you care to share?




33 comments:

♥ Braja said...

Ah, Rosaria, I can smell the beach...I’m the quintessential Aussie: suburban, ordinary, sun-kissed; a smattering of freckles across my nose, zinc cream daubed on like war paint. Beaches and “old” cars and big families. Vegemite sandwiches, blue-check school uniforms and cloth library bags. Church on Sundays, roast lunch, a drive to Gran’s place in the afternoon. Beaches and tents and caravans during the holidays; hot Christmas days, wooden-framed Morris Major station wagons, Army issue everything, sixties furniture because there was nothing else, not because it was ‘retro.’ Barbecues and home-made clothes; Old Spice aftershave and Gossamer hair spray; knitted jumpers with strange patterns, sports on weekends, muddy soccer boots; Tupperware parties, the Men’s Lounge, “shandies” and Navy Cut cigarettes in glass-blown ashtrays.....ah, the 60's :)

Nancy said...

My best summers were spent on the beach at Lake Tahoe, both as a child, teenager, parent, and now grandparent. The light air, the hot hot sun, soft sand, floating on my back, hearing water sounds, looking up at the mountains, free to just ..... be grateful for the moment.

Wander to the Wayside said...

I have very foggy memories in general unless I have a photo in front of me, or someone who was there to jog my mind. But I do have vague memories of a high school summer, probably between 11th and 12th grade, of going to the large public pool with four other girls and doing some serious guy oogling stuff, and getting burnt to a bloody crisp because that was before sunscreen!

Elizabeth Bradley said...

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I remember lakes, rivers, and the Oregon coast. We had a travel trailer and we went to Canada, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Oregon. One lake that stands out in my mind is Babine Lake, up in B.C., it was huge! Dad and Mom drove our little boat out to an island, where we had lunch and us kids swam and played on the sandy beaches, then clouds started moving in so Mom said we'd better get back to camp, but the motor wouldn't start. By the time Dad got the thing to work it was pouring and we had to ride back in the driving rain. Mom was so upset. I guess that's why I remember. It seemed that we were in peril.

Congrats on the award!

Amy said...

Swinging from the rope hanging from the tree branches and landing in the pond. Fishing off the dock for crappie and eating them for dinner that night. Camping overnight in the woods and feeling so adventurous, only to realize the next day that I was less than five minutes from my house. Painting fences and running wild and being outside from sunrise 'til sunset. Those were the careless and carefree days of summer!

ellen abbott said...

When I was growing up my parents had a vacation home on the west end of Galveston Island. Beach on one side, bay on the other (the island was narrow at that end). Our house was on the bay side but the beach was a short walk.

Brian Miller said...

summers spent among the tree trunks, the smell of earth and campfire mixing with breakfast. watching the sun rise as it peaks through the trees welcoming a new day across the lake.

potsoc said...

Short shorts, long hair, sliding in in the hot back leather seat of a hot car? Sounds wild to me. But those were the years.

Rose Marie Raccioppi said...

Summer is always a gift to this New Yorker! To running under the sprinklers in the city park, to being splashed by the street waters coming from the neighborhood "Johnny Pump," to the welcomed bell of the ice-cream truck, to my first summer romance, to my June wedding, to the summer birth of my twin sons, to the summer birth of my third son, to all the summers I have watched them enjoy swimming, growing and playing in the warmth of the season, to the first summer for each of my grandchildren, for our time together... every summer, at the beach, at the lake, at the pool, at the park, at home, has been and continues to be its own special season of delight.

xxx said...

there's still fun to be had as I can tell that you carry it well in your heart... you're a wonderful sharer and I along with others appreciate it very much... Congrats on your recent award..


best wishes always Ribbon :)

karen said...

Great memories, I love the poem, and the post about the old cars, too! Just catching up on all the posts.. been away for too long!

the walking man said...

My best summers are ones rolling in the memory of sweat soaked shirts and that greasy feeling that comes with them. Arms well and fit with sweat from my head to my feet cooling me as i swung hammer and wrench to build something bigger than I. Turbines and pumps cars and castles. Work, work was what made summer good because I didn't have to sweat in a winter coat.

Unknown said...

"Bare legs on hot leather seats" reminds me of beach days as a teenager in Savannah where my friends and I spent almost every weekend at Tybee Island. Wonderful, almost carefree, days.

Congrats on your Honest Scrap award.

vicki archer said...

Love the poem Rosaria...so beautifully expressed your summer sentiments, xv.

Maggie May said...

Playing around the fields of corn near our house when I was six or seven. The summers were always hot and sunny and I had some brilliant friends and all the time in the world!
We had such freedom compared to kids today.

Shadow said...

what a lovely poem. nice things they are, memories...

Reya Mellicker said...

LOVE the poem! I was there in the convert, my legs hot on the seat, my hair flying in the wind. Really there is nothing like riding around with the top down, is there? Beautiful!!

Susan said...

I can remember lazy days of drinking a lemonade and laying out in the sun with friends (which now I rather regret).

Eleonora Baldwin said...

Delightful poem, Rosaria. You are a wonderful painter of emotions.

My summers were a triumph of the senses. The texture a raw shrimp or the fleshy roe of a sea urchin fished out of salty sea water, sitting on my tongue... the smell of coconut-scented sunscreen, olive shrubs baking in the sun... the taste of peaches in wine, or the tang of biting into a lemon peel... the sun glimmering on the water at noon... the sound of cicadas and gulls singing in the midday heat.

Have you ever been to Positano?

Ahhhh...bliss....

Anonymous said...

jean shorts,
t-shirts
coconut scented oil
rivers, lakes, and the sea
woods
county fairs
golden skin

Renee said...

Rosaria I love it. I love that you don't hide in the backseat of a hot car.

Me neither.

xxoxo

Eddie Bluelights said...

Congratulations on the Honest Scrap Award.
Great poem.
Great to remember old times.
The earliest I can remember is when I was 3 and I had to go to Liverpool Hospital for a hernia operation - I was petrified and everyone looked so huge. I saw green men in green Welllington boots in the room which must have been next to the operating theatre. Someone stuck a nask over my face and I remember still the smell of Ether and then I passed out and awoke alone in a hospital bed screaming. Mother was not around - they didn't let them stay with their children in those days.
Best wishes and I am sorry for being a while visiting ~ Eddie

pink dogwood said...

I love this poem - especially this line
Forty years of desire
Piled high in the back seat.


My fondest memories of summer are when I was a little girl in India - eating mangoes, waiting for monsoons, sleeping on the roof top terrace and counting the gazillion stars, taking a dip in the fast flowing water of the chambal river in my grandma's village - oh so many memories :)

I also loved your previous post about cars.

Anonymous said...

It is amazing what age and wisdom does for those who us who engaged in the convertible summers of our youth.

Margo said...

your poem makes me very nostalgic for Big Gulps from 7-11, the song, "my sharona," suntans and outdoor showers.

Kathryn Magendie said...

I love "forty years of desire" - my favorite line!


Thank you for stopping by my place from Gumbo Writer's and for your kind words...

Room Service ~ Decorating 101 said...

Thanks for the sweet note that you left today...my followers are the best...

Reasons said...

Being nose high to the corn crops and coming home, sun kissed and very thirsty to a cold, cold glass of orange cordial.

p.s. you is racey lady!

Helen said...

My dear Rosaria .... you have perfectly captured what women of our age remember about being young, free and basking in the warmth of summer. Thank you, thank you! And thank you for that wonderful compliment too.

Lyn said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog. I responded to your comment but wasn't sure if you would see it. SO - thank you for your kind comment. I enjoy your blog immensly and I am the one who put Polar Bear (my dad) on to it! : )

Debbie said...

Lovely memories. I'm like you now. No shorts, I stick to the seats, etc!

Enchanted Oak said...

The poem is a lovely thing. Visual, emotive, mature. The two opening lines are STRONG. Glad I visited you.

Teri and her Stylish Adventure Cats said...

Congrats on the Award, and love the poem.

I loved reading everyone's "summer" lists and found myself saying "Oh yes, me, too" many times.

Add from me:

the smell of pine needles in the forest warmed by summer sun.

hummingbirds dive bombing me as I lay in the grass, their sounds so loud and brave

sno-cones

the scent of coppertone

slight musty tents

root beer floats