Lying In The Street

You dodged a bullet and didn't even know it. I had started a blog entry detailing the ins and outs of my mid-life crisis, but you are spared from that for at least one more week. My friend Bernie, who is a real writer (you may remember her....she used to write for The Nashville Scene when she lived here), is doing a 90 day summertime blog. EVERY day she is telling a different story about her memories of summers gone by. She challenged her readers to write about their summer memories and that sounded so much more pleasant to me than going on and on about some mid-life crisis full of first world problems!

In one of my favorite summer memories, my sisters and I always got a kick out of telling people, "I'm sorry, Daddy can't come to the phone right now. He's lying in the street!" What the stunned caller may not have known was that we lived at the dead-end of a very quiet street. I don't remember what gave my dad the idea to lie down in the street on those summer nights. It was just something that he always did. And we happily joined him.

I remember how the rough pavement felt on my back, still warm from the July sun baking it all day. My parents' property backs up to the Radnor Lake Natural Area, so there are trees covering our house and yard like a canopy. (My Aunt Margaret, who lives in Texas, says she feels claustrophobic when she comes to visit!) However, up on the street, you can see a wide expanse of starry sky. We would star-gaze while various family pets would step on us and lick our faces.

Maybe we were letting our dinner digest. We ate WELL every summer out of my dad's garden. My mom would make her iron skillet corn bread to accompany squash casserole, new potatoes, pole beans and tomatoes. My dad loved to tell us that the vegetables we were eating for dinner had still been growing in his garden that same morning!

I remember a lot of pinching and laughing and wrestling that took place while we lay in the street. It was a rare occurrence, but oh how we loved it, when a car would come driving up the street. We thought it was so funny to hop up, scurry to the side of the road and wave at the surprised passengers as the car drove by.

Now that I am a mom, and middle-aged (crisis and all...ha!), I know why my mom loved lying in the street. It was more about being together than star-gazing or rough housing. I think she had it right. Even in the late 70s and early 80s, life was starting to take on a hustle and bustle. She saw the luxury in summer evenings with nowhere to be. And she probably knew the easy, slow life-style was slipping away.

I'm trying to remember if I've even told Sydney about this childhood memory. Maybe I'll coax her away from the ipad, computer, ipod and TV. Maybe Mark and Syd and I will go lie in the street with my mom and dad. Maybe I'll change my voicemail to say, "I'm sorry I can't take your call right now. I'm probably lying in the street!"