All On a Summer’s Day
It’s strange how events have a way of repeating themselves. Summer. It’s been almost a week since school let out for summer vacation. Everyday, including today it rained hard. It rained so hard that we can’t go outside to play. My brother Rudy and I had looked forward to no more school. Swimming all day, every day, at the beach. Instead we seem to be stuck inside, again, looking out at a world we can’t be a part of.
But there’s that rickety old rope draped over a time-worn branch of our beloved oak tree-just beyond the kitchen window. The urge to swing on it is just too irresistible. Stop! We have to reflect on the words of our homely neighbor and our mother, who points upwards saying much to often, “You cannot serve two masters, for its virtues that a wise boy should often seek.”
Somehow those words end up always being a sound piece of advice-but not today, not today.
We would never dream of not doing what mother says, but it’s been a whole week of rain and indoor stuff. We can’t stand it anymore! With a bolt of enthusiasm Rudy and I exit the safe dwelling of our home-for that rickety old rope. A chance of freedom; not fretting the outcome.
Always, when we swung from that rope we felt as if we could see for miles. We could see from one side of the lake to the other. That was a distance for us at that age. We were in elementary school. The world was so much bigger then. At that age day after day we could stroll down the same old shady lane or swing from that same old rickety old rope no explanations, no planning, and no afterthought. We could imagine we saw castles that looked like they did in their heyday and that we lived in those castles for a while. The immaculate grounds held numerous swinging trees for our pleasures alone. It’s quite possible that the spirit of youth loves only the beauty of such special places.
But nobody was home, anywhere, to give much mind or care for that matter. Just two boys swinging on a rickety old rope on a dark rainy day during summer vacation is all it would have been to them, if anybody would have cared at all. But, it was not just any normal summer’s day. The sky was as dark as dusk and there was a bad storm brewing. We were told by mother to stay inside with a promise not to go out in that weather.
I remember, even now, the ancient old tree creaking and swaying in the wind as well as the force our little bodies had on her old limb while we swung higher and higher. The rain whipped at our faces so hard it hurt. We thought we heard thunder in the distance as the sky grew even darker and powerfully more intense. Lightning collided with it’s natural force against the branch of the “she oak”, inches from where our small hands gripped the rope. I yelled to my brother, “Are you scared at all” as we grasped the rope tighter and swung on. I remember he looked at me with surprise as though the thought hadn’t really occurred to him.
Then the end came. Our enthusiasm ended. The shady lane, the distance we could once see, the castles imagined now all held the look of desolation. In one moment-as the leg of lightning struck the branch that held our beloved rope-all we could say was good-bye-good-bye to everything. That rope that held the pleasures of our youthful paradise-that seemed to be unshakable and enduring died.
That rickety rope that we played on for so many years was coming down with a crash and Rudy and I were at the very end. We hit the neighbor’s hedge with a bang. I touched myself as if to feel my life. My brother looked up at me with a wild smile, “That was great little brother. Now we better get inside before anyone sees us and tells mother.”
Later that night, after we had gone to bed, we talked of that lightning storm that took our old rope. We talked of our wild ride-together. We laughed about the expression on my brothers face. Finally, as we drifted off to sleep, we agreed that nothing would ever compare to that escapade we had-All On A Summer’s Day.
Even as we grow old, memories are never forgotten and never should be.
