Days in the Sun

Summer memories. Even in Southern California, they are not all about having the price of an E-ticket or a trip to Tahoe. When evoking the glorious feel of cool water on a hot day in childhood, we learned that a garden hose can be as good as a backyard swimming pool, and that a Dairy Queen cone recalls ambrosia. We asked readers to send us their favorite summer recollections in 50 words or less, and received answers as diverse as memory itself--some as heavy as the sight of the Atlantic Fleet lying off the Maine coast in the summer of 1943, some as light as a Mason jar full of fireflies.

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Kayaking alone in the calm azure ocean off Santa Barbara at dusk, I heard a loudly exhaled breath and turned to find a dolphin gliding beside me, a smooth gray-blue arc below a startling full moonrise.

MARY-ANNA RAE, Santa Barbara

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1956 in Cleveland and days filled with badminton, bicycles and swimming at the public pool . . . fresh lemonade, homemade potato salad . . . new sandals, nickel day at the amusement park and sitting in front of the oscillating fan on sweltering days. That was Disneyland to me.

JOYCE A. LYNCH, Orange

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Compulsory ROTC at UC Berkeley got me into Naval ROTC. Our 1937 summer cruise to the Hawaiian islands on the battleship USS Colorado was interrupted by orders to search for a missing aviatrix, Amelia Earhart. No sands of Waikiki for us. We headed south for Howland Island and sailed into history.

FRED R. BROOKS, Santa Monica

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My Grandpa Henry ran the drive-in theater outside a small town in Texas. At sundown, I’d chase fireflies and make my own snow cones and chili dogs in the snack bar. After the cars had gone, we’d drive through town and change the posters for tomorrow night’s show.

REEVE RICKARD, North Hollywood

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On a sweltering Chicago day, we took a grill my mother made out of a potato chip can to the beach. After we swam, we cooked hot dogs. We stayed until it was black dark, watching the lights along the shore as it curved toward Indiana.

BETTY HECHTMAN, Tarzana

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It was the summer my dad lost his job. A ’58 Chevy sedan became our produce cart and stand. My father and I traveled around Boyle Heights hawking corn and sandias. I was excited and proud of our business. We worked hard. We were men. I was 10.

JAMES R. RETANA, San Gabriel

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Summer 1967. Our family car turned the corner of Reseda and Victory boulevards--and lo, a full-scale love-in was in progress in Reseda Park. Flowers, incense and wild hair were everywhere. My parents were vaguely disturbed. My sister and I were thrilled. Haight-Ashbury had come to the Valley!

SUSAN INJEJIKIAN HENRY, La Can~ada

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One day in the summer of 1934, I was stunned standing in the midst of that gargantuan jewel, the Amber Room in the palace of Catherine the Great in Pushkin, Russia. Six tons of magnificent Baltic amber set afire by the afternoon sun.

REBECCA LAWRENCE LEE, Carlsbad

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Summer. My friend David Gooch and I would have serious dirt clod fights until it got too dark or someone got hit in the head.

DODD HARRIS, West Los Angeles

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My best summer memory is July of 1954 in Germany as a 7-year-old hurrying with a horde of children to a neighbor’s house where a woman with red fingernails had arrived from America with a suitcase stuffed with stacks of Double Bubble gum.

LAURA WACO, Tarzana

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After completing a two-year Army obligation in Germany in 1970, I came to Los Angeles, got a job and saved up for a Suzuki 250 motorbike. In July, I rode across the country on old Route 66 in seven days at a total cost of $13.

WILLIAM HEHR, Garden Grove

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One summer, it seemed like Mom granted our every wish. She made us chocolate shakes and root beer floats almost every day. She took us to Dairy Queen all the time for cones. Once, after much persuasion, she made us hot fudge sundaes for breakfast.

LESLIE RENOUF MONTANO, La Mirada

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On intense warm, humid nights of midsummer in Virginia, we would venture outside with jars and catch the musky smelling lightning bugs. These teeming jars would serve as lanterns in our bedrooms, their wonderful and mysterious glow mesmerizing us to sleep.

CONSTANCE ALTER, Woodland Hills

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One Aug. 10, my birthday, we hiked to the summit of Lassen Peak, where my husband took out a bottle of champagne from his backpack and stuck it in a snowbank to chill.

CATHERINE G. BRUHN, Hawthorne

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1943. The North Atlantic fleet lay anchored off the shore of Maine. I had contracted to rake the beach. A wrecked rowboat lay deserted nearby. Zealously I scraped, caulked, painted. Soon Socrates was ocean-ready. Every day I rowed around Casco Bay, even venturing to the moored ships.

PAM STRAYER, Laguna Beach

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My great-grandmom gave me a peacock feather and I loved it. On a cross-country trip on a highway through Texas, I fell asleep and my feather flew out the car window. My dad made a U-turn and drove miles and all six kids got out to look for it.

ELIZABETH ROGERS PALSER, Mar Vista

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My summer before high school, there was a group of us who had known each other since we shed our diapers who spent many summer nights playing outdoors. During this summer together, we wanted to play less and talk more. I realized childhood was not forever and I was no longer a child.

ROBERT GARCIA JR., Van Nuys

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One summer, my father bought a crate of cantaloupes that we kept on the porch. My friends and I were hot and bored. We slowly started to chuck spoonfuls of melon at each other. Next thing, chaos. Before we knew it, the crate was empty. What a mess.

NANCY TAFOYA, Pasadena

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Summer. Ohio. I was 16 and trying to get a California girl tan in my backyard. “Crisco,” somebody said. “Use Crisco.” When my date arrived, I was deeply tanned and smelled like a French fry. The Beach Boys played. We drove by a cornfield and wished it was an ocean.

JANICE YAROSH, Bennington, Ill.

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It was July 1945. I was 22. My husband, Reuben, called. He had just landed at Newport News, Va., from Germany and I was to meet him at Ft. Dix. “He’s alive, he’s safe,” I cried as I jumped higher and higher, trying to reach the ceiling.

BLANCHE ROSLOFF, Pacific Palisades

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While playing hide and seek in our neighborhood park one sweltering 1967 night, I discovered the hidden sprinkler key. I turned it, and the sprinklers sprang to life. My buddies jumped from their hiding places and danced with delight through the cool showers of water. I was a hero.

KAREN JONES, Huntington Beach