Summertime..

...and livin' is easy.

So says an old blues tune. Ella sang it. We all remember Janis's version. John Coltrane does the best instrumental I've ever heard. But Nora Jones does the best with vocals out of the whole bunch I think.

But the artist really doesn't matter. Every time I hear that song and hear a cicada rattle I'm transported back to my youth..back to my summertimes.

It's different for every human being, a unique mixture of sounds and smells and...magic. I can shut my eyes and remember walking in the back door at Momma Cash's kitchen. She would tell us to not let the screen door slam, just as it squeeked and slammed.

The house was cool and the low frequency rumbldy-rump of the swamp cooler made it seem like some sort of sanctuary. If it was before mid-afternoon, the smell of something pork and fried for breakfast still lingered slightly in the kitchen.

All us Cash boys had jobs in the summer, sometimes two or three. We came and went like transients all hours of the day and night without any explanation. My folks knew where we were going and where we were coming from. After finishing throwing newspapers on porches I would wind up at Bill's 66 Garage. Bill opened early, but due to the amount of Jim Beam he had consumed the day before he wasn't worth much. I would pump the gas for the morning rush, stock the pop-box (always a freebie Coke involve) and open his bay doors and wash and sweep the greasy concrete floor before the sun got too high. If Bill had any flats to fix, that was always an extra buck or two. Fixing flats was definitely a morning job. The tire jig was the old "Armstrong" variety, complete with spoon, pry-bar and sledge hammer. Being on the west side of the building made afternoon tire work miserable.

Hot afternoons were spent napping a little after a lunch of whatever was left over from the breakfast Momma Cash had sizzled up. The "boys" room was great place to relax with an AM radio and a box fan. There were also plenty of Pop's old Popular Mechanics magazines so a boy could dream about toward what he could spend his meager earnings.

Evening time we always got together as a family for supper. After that we all gone again to either night jobs or hanging out at the Dairy-Freeze on our scooters or playing pin-ball at the bowling alley. It was a full schedule that kept young men busy.

Life was truly easy. At least once a week all three of us boys would miraculously come home to roost at the same time and take care of yard chores. I knew exactly how much an acre and a half was when I was a kid. Mowing and pulling weeds in the vegetable garden can give a person a real good idea how much area that is, for sure.

I was by the old 'hood the other day. Holden had trashed the motor in his pickup and didn't have a thing to drive. I took him a motorcycle that would be sitting idle if he hadn't needed it. The neighborhood is just a shell of what it use to be. Bill's 66 is a tattoo parlor. The old grocery store next to there is a Mercado Mexicana now. Things really don't look the same at all. Except in our memories.

After I made it to Holden's place we sat and drank watery semi-iced tea. A family tradition that goes back to the days refrigerators only had one ice-tray, so most drinks only wound up with one or two cubes. We talked about our summers and how it seemed like nothing would ever change. As kids we dreamed about things changing.

Now as old guys it seems we sit and think about the way it was before it changed.

Life is like that. But IT IS summertime now, and livin' is easy. Just like the song says....B-)