Just in time for Memorial Day, a summer story
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- May 25, 2024
- 684
Let’s start with a timely math question: If I spent 40 days on the beach every summer over the course of 23 years, what did I learn?
That’s more than 7,000 hours … not exactly a small sample size.
And now that I’m no longer able to get to the ocean whenever I feel the need, I’ll try to examine my experiences in order to help others.
I am, after all, a giving person. Why do you think I’m still writing?
With that in mind, let me give you a hint: The lesson imparted is all about summer love, its attractions and its perils, and why it remains among the most dangerous adventures under a sunny sky.
But before we hit the beach, allow me an additional math question:
If a seasonal parking pass used to be $40 and it’s now $200, what percentage increase is represented? If you figured 400%, well done and welcome to the inflationary reality that is 2024.
Honestly, I have no idea how people even leave their houses for anything other than stocking up on necessities and emergencies.
Just for fun, I priced the cheapest tickets for the upcoming Rolling Stones concert in Cleveland. Keep in mind that when I saw them in the summer of 1975, it cost me $12 and they were part of what was billed as a “World Series of Rock” event that lasted all afternoon and well into the night, with Joe Vitale’s Madmen, the Tower of Power and the J. Geils Band also on the bill.
If I wanted to go on June 15, I’d have to fork out nearly $1,000.
And those seats will most likely be sold, to which I say, “God bless you folks with that kind of discretionary spending power, but it’s too bad you won’t see the band when they were actually good.”
Speaking of the summer of ’75, when I was 20 years old and living at home before I started my senior year in college, it was my great good fortune to get involved in a relationship with a comely young lady who had just graduated from high school. She was tall and tan and lithe and rather shy until we got to know each other a bit better.
We ran a lot of stop signs, figuratively speaking, as July became August, doing what we pleased when we pleased where we pleased.
In public, however, we were discreet as cat burglars, limiting ourselves to the occasional holding of each other’s hand, eschewing the spectacle of embarrassing displays of affection.
And I think that’s when I learned the loveliness of that simple gesture of togetherness. It became, over time, a much more intimate representation of who we were than stealing a kiss.
Whereas the Rolling Stones wanted to spend the night together, the Beatles were more than content to simply want to hold your hand.
And that brings us to the beach. Over the years I spent sunning and swimming and listening to my CD player as the cooler did its job, I became accustomed to the endless parade of young people, some in packs, others in twosomes, and I was always on the lookout for those telltale signs of a gestating relationship heading even higher.
I mean there are very few places more conducive to that kind of inevitable escalation than a sweet expanse of sand, waves rolling in, the skies above azure beyond appreciation and the seagulls wheeling above even as the pelicans kamikaze-dived into the surf.
“Beach baby, beach baby, give me your hand, give me something that I can remember.” Remember that summer song from a one-hit wonder British group named The First Class? Perhaps you do.
It always flashed through my mind, triggering my inner jukebox of acquired memories each time I watched young couples walk past my vantage point, and when they were holding hands, I worried.
My wife could sense a change in mood because she knows me well.
“You’re doing it again,” she’d say, lowering her Kindle. “Stop it.”
“Can’t you see?” I’d say. “That guy has no idea how much it’s gonna hurt when the summer’s over and she finds someone else.”
“They’re just holding hands, walking on the beach,” she’d always say, turning her attention back to her book. “It’s nothing sinister.”
“He doesn’t understand,” I’d always say, “that she’s way smarter.”
Let’s return one last time to the wisdom of the Rolling Stones:
“It’s over now.
It’s a summer romance
And it’s through.”
By the time Mick and the boys in the band recorded that song, they were in their 30s and millionaires many times over, but they were still in touch with their adolescence and those lessons. It’s nothing personal when a love crashes and disappears under the waves.
It’s just life.
If you ask me now, today, whether I miss the beach, I’d say sure.
Who wouldn’t?
But I can do without seeing those doomed hands holding onto pain.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or at 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to find him on Facebook, where the Rolling Stones remain his favorite band.