I want to reach back in time and retrieve those summers that I knew long ago. In my fertile and unblemished childhood mind, those summers seemed to span a blissful course of carefree eternity - where time and purpose were momentarily suspended and the burden of reality was suppressed.
Those were the golden times, when minds weren't stifled and tainted with the toxic addiction of the Internet, video games, cell phones, and social media.
Those were times of delicious normalcy - - when plague masks were unheard of, and there were no inane restrictions to destroy the body and ravage the soul. The flu and the common cold ran their natural course, without the perpetual indoctrination of pandemic panic.
Summers were accepted as being hot - a natural annual occurrence - which had nothing to do with frantic alarmist pronouncements of climate change and an eventual fiery Armageddon.
Swimmers and beachcombers savored the intoxicating sunshine without the impending prediction of eventually contracting skin cancer and suffering the agony of eternal doom.
The world at that time projected a satisfying sense of normalcy and rationality.
I want to resurrect the times when sun tea was the best ice tea ever consumed and back yard barbecues didn't cause world-wide pollution and global damnation.
I want to savor the simple summer childhood pastimes and diversions that I once knew:
Swimming, biking, roller skating. Tree climbing and jumping rope. Languishing in secret shady places while absorbed in the luxury of reading books.
Indulging in idle hours of board games: checkers, Chinese checkers, games such as Monopoly, Why, and Clue.
Staying up later than childhood restrictions allowed - being scared witless with the unholy exchange of ghost stories.
Listening to a transistor radio under the covers in bed, during the hours when you should have been sleeping.
Childhood summers were absolute perfection in the biased luxury of what we choose to remember.
In grim reality, nothing is perfect.
In the sacred portal of our selective memory,
perfection lingers with unabashed persistence.
Cheers, Jon
