The Last Summer

Summer of ‘55

My beloved ’41 Packard bites the dust. As teenagers are wont to be, foolishly I decided I could spin wheels on a wooden bridge that crossed over some railroad tracks. They spun, as did the whole car, right into the railing of the bridge. Score: bridge railing 1; left fender 0, along with its imbedded headlight. Shortly after, a local gendarme informed me that if he ever caught me driving at night I would be thrown in jail. So, as soon as I saved enough money to buy my next car, a ’36 Plymouth, I said a sad farewell to the Packard as I sold it for $15 to the auto graveyard.
Having spent the last two summers working at the Federal Tin Co. loading boxcars, this summer brought a real cushy job as a soda jerk (today’s term I guess would be “liquid refreshment dispenser junior manager assistant”) at the Castleon Dairy on the main highway. The only time business was brisk was when an occasional busload of customers would stop for relief, so I spent most of my tip money by playing the one pinball machine we had.
I learned to play chess that summer but it never held the fascination for me that card games had. The weekend pinochle games continued but were interrupted by my absence for “dating”, which I discovered could be quite entertaining.
We finally got a window “air conditioner”, which was installed in the kitchen window, right where it could cool us during the card games. Other relief from the heat was swimming at the “quarry”, a natural hole that was filled with fresh water. It was one of the Intelligent Designers gifts to us but then the people who claimed to “own” the place threw down some sand and called it a beach, put up a refreshment stand, and can you guess, started charging to enter. Bah, humbug.
As the days grew longer, it was the only time I can remember looking forward to the start of school. This would be “it”, and I would be among the masters of the school universe, a “Senior” - ha cha cha!