Summer evenings -- lost

We’re AT the end of the American Airlines concourse at LAX, where gates 46, 47 and 48 all converge in a Pinwheel of Pain for hundreds of departing travelers. There’s that awful Burger King nearby and a Starbucks that doesn’t understand our order. Help me, God.

“Dad?”

“Huh?”

“Wanna play catch?”

“Not here.”

“Later?”

“Yeah, later,” I say.

LAX doesn’t even qualify as an airport anymore. It seems irrevocably broken, like a Rust Belt town that can’t pull itself up off the mat. Or like New York in 1975 -- too big, too impossible. As residents, our only advantage is that we’re used to it.

“When we go?” the little guy asks.

“Pretty soon,” I say.

“OK,” he says.

Through this long morning, our 4-year-old is sustained by the idea of visiting his six cousins again. He knows that cousins are even better than brothers and sisters. Cousins seem glad to see you. They have different toys to play with. Breakfast smells different at your cousins’ house, as well as the bleach in the bed sheets.

“Flight 1624 to Chicago will begin boarding in a moment,” the gate agent announces.

“Yesssss!” says the little guy.

“We’ll be boarding by group . . . wait, no we won’t. We’ll be boarding by row number,” the agent says.

I don’t care how we get on. For all I care, we can slide down a firehouse pole. We can come up through the lavatory.

“We goin’ to Chicago now?” the little guy asks.

Yep, we’re going to Chicago now. Back to visit his grandma, his cousins, to gasp at the peachy prairie sunsets.

“We’d now like to board those in rows 42 and 43,” the gate agent says.

“Two rows?” my wife asks me. “Two rows?”

“This is going to take forever,” says the little girl.

--

Our trip reveals that the homogenization of America is now nearly complete, though the weather varies slightly, not to mention the quality of local newscasts. Other than that, we are now almost one ginormous suburb. We see the same moms, the same mini-malls. If anything, the Chicago suburbs now have more strip malls than Los Angeles does. How’d they beat us at that?

Sure, there are other subtle differences, nuances of habit and culture. They love their asphalt driveways here. And the dads insist on belting a pair of khaki shorts. It’s little things, mostly. In seven days here we see, like, one Prius.

Hometowns. So much changes, so much doesn’t. In my old suburb, the church bells still need tuning. The crab grass still creeps up over the edge of the sidewalk the way it did in 1968. The dog still scratches at the screen door the exact same way. Scratch-scratch-scratch. Pause. Scratch-scratch-scratch.

Oh, and let me tell you, this year’s corn crop? A vision. If you like your ethanol, or a good buttery sirloin, you’re going to be in luck very soon. A drive into the countryside reveals cornfields a lush, Wrigley green. It’s going to be an epic harvest, all right. It’s going to be a first-rate fall.

Till then, the little guy finds heaven in his grandma’s backyard. He plays whiffle ball with his cousins and chases butterflies with a torn net. He digs for worms when it rains. He eats fat tomatoes right off the vine, sometimes without picking them. Slowly, August becomes him, and he becomes August.

“His feet . . . they’re like chocolate pudding,” his mother moans one night.

I can’t take all the credit for his dirty feet, though I do encourage the little guy to explore this new world. At least he’s outside. Indeed, he is one of the few souls I spot out of doors.

As our week goes on, I grow increasingly disappointed in the lack of summer activity. It’s just like back in California: no kids on bikes, no one washing a car. By the third day, I am ready to climb the roof of my boyhood home and yell: “COME OUT OF YOUR HOUSES! TURN OFF YOUR TVS AND YOUR IPODS! YOU’RE MISSING ANOTHER SUNSET!”

These streets were once dizzy with children. We would play ball all day and play hide-and-seek half the night.

Lord, we could cause trouble. We’d tie guys to trees or shoot BB guns at Pepsi bottles. We’d crush caps with rocks for hours.

When it got dark, we’d tell ghost stories. Or stand outside a lighted window and watch pudgy neighbors canoodle on the couch. Hmmmm, is that a breast or a knee? Yowza!

Those were the days, all right, before cable and computers. Before cellphones and club teams. Before something stole the boys of summer right off the small-town streets.

Now one’s back. Is that a ghost or a little boy? No, that’s a boy. He’s 4 and full of fire.

But can one little man make a difference?

Next week: Boyhood pals return.

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Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com/erskine.