Ode to Summer...

If you have ever lived on a farm or near one, you know what a wheel line is.  A long watering mechanism with sprinklers for a head and wheels for feet.  There is it's mama, the center-pivot...a  massive system with one large sprinkler on the end and several drops along the tubing to the middle of the field.  Many a child shivering at the thought of being hit by that end sprinkler while riding our bikes on the back roads in the summer.  It was like being pelted with the stream from a fire hose, knocking you on your butt, drenching you completely and easily.  I swear I could hear it laugh as it passed on, the click of the sprinkler saying "tsk, tsk, frail human"...
Summer was a paradise.  The sun soaked you during the day and dragged lazily to dusk  stretching out its departure to the very last minute every night.  We ran and played jumping about, occasionally finding hidden treasure in the hot earth and sometimes burying our own.  Road 7 ran behind my house (about a quarter mile behind me across a corn field.) My friend Lisa lived down that road about a mile and half.  Surely, we had worn tire tracks into the pavement going back and forth on our bikes when we realized we were "neighbors" (haha)  We were 11 (my daughter's age now) when we decided to bury our treasure - A mason jar full of silver! (etch-a-sketch dust).   
With the exception of a couple of main arteries through the valley, our play land consisted of roads named for letters and numbers.  Simple and effective as if to taunt the bigger cities about their parkways and boulevards of fancy names.  We swam in the lakes and ditches, sometimes the city pool... we laid in fields staring up at the endless blue and breathed in the aroma of alfalfa, the scent of home.  We gorged ourselves full of the summer high until it was time to come back down and face the reality of going back to school.
As we all got older, we had parties in secret locations (the patch, the trees...yes I remember them all but a few have names I'm not going to repeat!!)  Some of us painted the tunnel with our names and the names of the boys and girls we loved.  Others invaded Crescent Bar to mingle with the "206-ers" that would colonize the area from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  I had a group of best friends I did everything with.  I remember coming down to earth one day while we were all out swimming at H Lake.  I watched my "girls" laying on the rocks to stay warm, jumping off the cliff to the water below, the bronze of summer on their faces.  I wondered in that instant if we would always be friends.. would we always stay together?  We made a pact, "best friends forever" so it had to be true right?  Would our lives change enough that they wouldn't be my next door neighbors when we became adults?  I pondered this as I sat atop of the rocks at H Lake that afternoon.  My intuition told me I would be writing about this one day, so enjoy while it lasted.  I made a point of memorizing the area around me,  from the first splash to the drive home.  When I think about it today I can visualize it all.  It is one of my only memories so vivid.
I've lived away from the area for 7 years.  The place I live now feels somewhat like home...but I sense how mistaken I am each time we are driving in from I-90 at George to Quincy.  If it happens to be summer I roll down the windows (affffter the feedlot..haha) and breath the alfalfa and mint just like I did as a kid.  The nostalgia is instant.  All I have to do is close my eyes and listen for the click of the wheel line and I'm home.
A lot has changed.  We have some streets in town with actual names!  There is much more industry and some of the farms have disappeared.  But the area is still the same, the familiar flatness of the land hasn't changed, and good ole Road 7 is still there.  As we pass it each summer on our way into town, I strain my neck trying to see a little glint of silver under the power lines where we buried our treasure so long ago.  I've never seen it, of course, but I can't help but hope it's still there, holding a bit of summer's past and etch a sketch dust inside.


For those of you who know exactly what I mean:  Here's to summer♥
Love,
T♥