June

 

 

There are those times when things are going along swimmingly and you don’t notice it because you’re immersed in that flow without forcing it, it naturally unfolds on it’s own. The current takes you downstream and you are part of that river. I had a few hours of that the other night, mainly due to the weather which was perfect at 9:30 PM when the last light of the sun faded. I was chatting with neighbors, was barefoot, add to that an nice breeze out of the south carryng the not too loud songs of Courtney Barnett coming from my stereo.

Courtney

After a half an hour of that, it was then I realized just how pleasant everything was, for a little while anyway. I then remembered as kids, we were on the same streets, same fields on such same nights, bug bitten, dirty and trying to catch fireflies. That night the local kids were doing gymnastics on the front lawns, or zipping up and down the street in their electric powered go carts, the shouting by them not annoying at all.

I suppose there are a hundred or so of other summer moments like that I’ve had. Ones that managed to fasten themselves in my mind.

July 4^th 1978, Route 4 on the way to Scarborough beach, passing the rail fenced horse ranch. The fields are cut and all that hay smelled wonderful. Jack Staw was playing on the 8 Track and I’m wearing my favorite shirt, a sort of Beach Boys blue and white stripped cotton one. In 20 minutes my brother will drive to a spot in the grass parking lot and we’ll share a joint. I’ll spend the day getting sunburned and basking in the fact I have the rest of the summer off till school starts again in September, but that’s a long ways off. But for now, I’m free. The salt air, Hawaain Tropic tanning oil mixed with fryolator oil from the burger shack is in the air. I see the very pretty women in bikinis and wonder, will I...can I...date one of them some day? Right now they look sort of like Hollywood models, way beyond my class or reach. Hell, I’m 14 and barely starting out. So far, I’ve only clicked front teeth with another girl’s teeth in a furtive first kiss. But no matter, we’re all oogling the girls as they pass by. After the beach, we head down to Galilee to poke around. My brother manages to score two shots of some awful whiskey at that hotel with the windmill contraption on the roof. I was surprised the bartender didn’t ask him how old I was at the time, or probably he just didn’t care at all. We get over to the docks in that green water and watch the Block Island ferry dock and disembark. More odd smells, diesel, salt water, seaweed and more fryolator oil from somewhere.

We drive home finally. I get out of the car and am sunburned, stoned, slightly dirty with sand and otherwise feel great.

Paddy’s Beach bar in Misquamicut sometime in the early 90’s with my friend M. It’s a very clear night at 1 AM. I am sitting at one of those polycarbonate outdoor tables, drinking a warmed beer hearing the mild surf crashing at a slow pace. We had been drinking in the summer sun since 11AM but at a measured pace. I’m lit up and I notice, for the first time, that I can see Block Island’s lights on the horizon off to the left. I had never seen that before. Damn, that’s twelve miles away and I can see it! The moon is full and scintillating off the waters as well. I come to realize that the first tattoos, when it just started becoming popular, on the ankles of girls from Connecticut, aren’t that bad at all. Misquamicut, I find out, is the go to beach for those nearby in Connecticut as Long Island Sound is filthy. In time, the Guidettes from N. Providence and Cranston will sport ankle tattoos.

The ride home after dropping M off in Coventry was great. I had the top down on my Dodge 400 and I was zipping along the back country roads, trying to reach the Scituate reservoir and then Rt 95 via 37. The woods there are thick and am diving and rising out of hollows filled with nearly impenetrable fog as I cruise along. I cross the dam at the reservoir and I can see in the clear sky, all those stars. And as I cross the top of the dam and what I don’t know yet is that in five years time, I’ll be dating Annie who lives not 200 yards from that straightaway in an Aspen-like home that smells of the pine woods.

But back to the present and driving home. I then think of Kelly as I pass that dam knowing I am close by her now. Should I stop by and see her? If the white Camero is in the driveway, I’ll pull in.

No..don’t...it’s 3 AM. Her parents won’t be that happy if I do. Plus, she’ll wonder where I was coming from and why I am there so late, buzzed and looking scruffy. Her feminine radar will flash on and know what I want. So I don’t and instead fly by and look to see her Camero is there but the house is dark.

I finally pull up to my house in Pawtucket. I shut down the stereo deck and turn off the car and I think, “I should’ve been busted for DWI all the way home from Misquamicut.” But the best of luck prevailed, I had not seen one cop car the entire time coming home. It’s 3:30 AM and it’s still 68 degrees, clear and I have no work the next day. I am free.

One early summer night when I was 14, I had seen my first concert at the Providence Civic Center. Frank Zappa had come to town and I probably wouldn’t have gotten into his music if my brother hadn’t bought all those albums of his, trying to learn the guitar parts. Outside of the Civic Center, I had never seen such a throng of held over hippies, young pretty women and what looked like, a specimen of every human zoo creature known.

Strange and bizarre.

This was also my first introduction to a well designed sound system. I did not know till that moment that rock music was to be felt as well as heard. All we had at home was a Radio Shack Realistic stereo with a tiny 30 watts. Zappa had 4,000 if needed.

Not that you know it, but in the song “City of Tiny Lights,” there is a transitioning into musical chorus that starts with a bank of synthesizers in the low end. Those notes shot from the speakers into my chest with a THUMP! What a feeling! I hadn’t known of this. I heard things I never heard before. That synthesizer solo then sounded like it was crackling the air as it played too. Wonders! Can this be done at home I wonder?

At the intermission, the main lights come up and I see a cloud of marijuana smoke slowly drifting to the rear. The Providence cops stationed here and there paid NO mind to any of it all.

My brothers friends had come well supplied and passed joints between us during the first set. It was during the intermission, when I had looked over my left shoulder for a bit, holding a joint and seeing my English teacher from Goff Jr High sitting two rows up behind me, looking straight ahead trying to not notice me whatsoever. Too late, we BOTH know each other is there.

After the concert, walking to the car, it was sort of humid, foggy in down town Providence as it had rolled in during the show and my ears, for the first time, where ringing from the PA system of a first concert. Cool! We ended up the night at Sambos in East Providence for burgers. It was then my 19 yr old brother admits to me that he had taken mescaline prior to the show and he figured he’d be up the rest of the night. Mescaline? I had never seen that before. He was further along on some things than I had known.

The next morning in Goff, in English class, the teacher and I locked eyes, for a good few seconds and our eyes said: “I won’t say nothing if you don’t say nothing.”

**

At 60, I was glad to have had another night where the planets align. Even it was just some thing simple. Things seem to align quite a bit in June.