Summer is Fast Approaching

May 18, 2010

You know what I love at this time of year?

Growing up in Las Vegas might seem a weird concept to most. My childhood, besides the last post, was pretty great--especially in the summer. The days were spent in the hot sun, swimming in the neighborhood pools to cool off. Everyday, the neighboorhood kids and I would choose which pool to play in, and we would spend all day long jumping in and out of the pool. I of course, as you can tell, was very fair. The brutal Las Vegas summers turned me into a lobster, and when that happened, I had to spend a couple of days recovering indoors. I didn't care. My parents had to force me to stay home on those days, because the kid universe revolved around swimming, at least in my neighborhood. When we finally decided to come in from the pool, the air conditioned houses would blow cool air on our 'fresh out of the pool' bodies. We lived on kool-aid and watermelon. Our hair full of clorine and our eyes burning--we loved being fish for those three months. Three glorious months of sun, swim, bike riding, summer nights and absolute freedom.

That's when summers meant acutually relaxing instead of just hot cars blowing semi-cold air in the middle of rush hour. Children have the ability to make almost anything magical. Las Vegas seemed to come alive, at least in the kid world. There were baseball games, backyard bbqs, picnics and plays to attend. I remember on a couple occasions we made a monumental trip down to the 7-11, by ourselves walking, to buy slurpees for everyone in our group. The conversations we had as we all galavanted down the street--well, I'll never forget. There were no predators, no child molesters, or evil people out to get us. We didn't know about them anyway. The world was innocent. Everything was at peace. How I long to go back to that world of complete ignorance instead of the adult world we all live in now. The world was our oyster and every summer was going to be 'the best summer of our lives.'

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