Reflection on long-ago summers

I don't think I have a favorite summer.

             I never actually liked summer better than winter, or any other season. As a girl, I was stuck on the farm in summer. I missed my friends, and had no one to play with except my little brother and the older girls who lived at the next farm, a mile up the road. They were no fun.

            Summers were spent lying out in a clover field, whichever one my dad had decided to let lie fallow that year, reading book after book and daydreaming about the wonderful exciting life I would lead someday, in a city full of people. Summers were hot and sticky, and the girdle my mother insisted I wear was like heavy armor. As I grew older, my thirst for people led me to ride my bike the mile and a half into town nearly every day, and the municipal swimming pool became the center of my existence. No girdles were required under a swimming suit! Once I got my driver's license, I spent even less time on the farm. In summer I worked at the A & W carhopping, or sewed dresses for the next school year with my friends. With my eye toward the End of Summer.

            Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. My birthday is in autumn. School was back in session and there were football games and band rehearsals and a million things to do. The days got crisp and I could wear sweaters and corduroy skirts, my favorites. Leaves turned gorgeous red, yellow, and orange, crunching as you walked through them, and the smell of bonfires foretold Homecoming, when the heroes who had gone off to college returned, and Halloween. It was an exciting time after the doldrums of summer.