The signs of a new season
Iwas driving down Harney Lane the other day when I felt a vibration in the universe. No, it wasn’t my blood thinner kicking in. I looked over and saw a dab of red amongst the green leaves on the trees on the north side of the street. The first sign of fall.
“Wait a minute, wasn’t the Ooh Aah Festival just last week? Summer’s over?”, I thought. I realize summer was a nutty mish-mash filled with smoky days, Trump tweets, and Giants losses. But it’s over already? Really?
The subtle signs that our summertime fun was coming to a close have been around Lodi for weeks. I chose to ignore them due to the simple fact IT WAS AUGUST! There are the Halloween costumes staring down at you at Costco, bags of trick or treat candy stacked like a World War II machine gun nest at Safeway, and those creepy butlers and witches that verbally assault you at Lowe’s or Raley’s. The retail world demands change well ahead of the rest of us. I bet that foot-high Santa who grinds it like Elvis in 1956 will be on shelves by the end of the month.
Most of the Lodi area schools have been in session since late July. I shall also blame that for my end of season miscalculation.
There used to be a rhythm to life. You got out of school in early June. You finished up your Little League or swim team season shortly thereafter. If you were sentenced to attend summer school due to bad behavior, bad grades, or working parents who wanted you in a structured environment so you wouldn’t burn anything down, you angrily spent the next month at the same school you just escaped from, sort of like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. If your parole wasn’t revoked and you had a full three months of vacation, you went camping. Everyone went camping. Or Santa Cruz. It was a law in the ’70s. Governor Ronald Reagan signed it as he was leaving office.
Every child between 5 and 18 years old had to go camping at some dusty facility with one restroom/shower for 50 campsites in Calaveras or Tuolumne County. Or they had to eat a belly-full of salt water taffy and pump $30 in quarters into the Skee-Bowl game in a futile attempt to earn enough of those blue tickets to score a handful of green plastic army men worth about a dime at the arcade the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I fought the law but the law won.
Camping and Santa Cruz got you to about, oh, mid-July. Now what? Many parents pondered that question sitting across from each other in their avocado green living room in the haze of Salem cigarette smoke while chugging Tab soda. Or Martini and Rossi, on the rocks. Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and Beverly Hillbillies reruns could only get you so far. Those cold bologna sandwiches your mom left for you didn’t cut it. Playing lob ball, flying over your handlebars ala Evel Knievel at Caesar’s Palace, or sneaking into the UOP pool became lame. You actually reached a point that you wanted to go back to school. Your parents’ and principal’s sick mind games were subtle but ingenious.
You felt you were headed in the right direction when your mom took you shopping for school clothes in late August. That was fun unless she happened to work for a department store, say JC Penney, like our mom did. Every stitch of clothing we had was from JC Penney. No Levi’s for the Piombo kids. No sir. Don’t even ask.
The fall Issue of the TV Guide arrived shortly thereafter as a sign from the Divine or Gene Shalit that normal life lie just ahead. School started the day after Labor Day. The football season began that weekend too. You were contented to be back in the old routine. But no matter how happy you were, eleven words from your mom each night coldly reminded you that you were starting a nine month stretch in the big house. “Kids. Time to come in. You’ve got school in the morning.” Dang.