The Dog Days of summer are here

I don’t notice them as much as I once did, probably because like the majority of folks, I stay in the house soaking up the cool breezes of the old AC.

Why is it then I like to remember those sweltering days when I was a youngster with such nostalgia?

I’ve gone back to those days using Google Earth, a neat little program that takes you just about anywhere in the world you want to go and allows you to view your subject in what I would call almost-real time.

I’ve gone back and revisited those sixty-year-old-summer stomping grounds, and guess what—they’re not the same as I remember.

The old canyons where we played cowboy and Indians are merely ruts in the field; the swirling, raging creeks are simply tiny rivulets struggling through the sand; the great trees are gone; the long vines have vanished; the rolling sand hills are nothing more than bumps in the prairie.

Could I have imagined all that?

Wise men have said it. I’m simply repeating it. You can’t go home again.

I’d like to.

I’d like to sit in the park on the fender of a Model-A watching the weekly croquet match at the city courts; the men gathering around the court, commenting on and admiring each other’s mallets, arguing the advantages of soft pad versus hard pads; the women clustering around two or three cars, discussing gardens, children and whispering the latest scandals; and the kids, well, we just ran wild.

Sometimes, our third grade teacher, who lived within spitting distance of the court, made homemade ice cream. I’ll never forget Miss Fields. She was strict, but fair. I was an ornery brat, but she had my number.

Bless her heart, she couldn’t get away with it today, given the sick state of mind our society possesses, but when all of her punishments ran out, she resorted to ‘The Backbreaker.’

It always worked. (Well, it took three times for me.)

She’d stick us under her desk.

That’s right. You have any idea how cramped it is under a teacher’s desk — when she’s sitting there?