<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT BACK="#ffffff" SIZE=4 PTSIZE=12><I> SIX SUMMERS AGO <BR>
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Six summers ago, my mother, my sisters and I lived on sweet pickles and granny smiths. Back then she sang to us the importance of apples, she said they were the medicine you feed your brain. Back then, all I knew of medicine was the kind we secretly fashioned into our dog's canned food. They were the kind of pills you could keep smashed up in his meal, that way he'd never know you were poisoning him. On those days, summer was a playground, and we were children. I ignored what was becoming of myself, of my body and my character, and figured I was still a child doing cartwheels in the sun, feeding my brain granny smiths and sweet pickles.<BR>
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I never once stopped to look, not that I needed to. I was hurling forward at an undeviating speed, crossing over and through the unyielding forces of adolescence, puberty and development. I was basking in my own naive happiness, and looking back now, I sometimes wish I was still there. I feel like I'm there every now and then. And it's a pleasant little feeling that swirls around in my tummy coating my insides like a warm glass of milk. It was six summers ago, my sisters and I, our mother, and the summer, we were all on it for the ride. <BR>
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The heat was a crazy reminder that you never take your bathing suit off. The news warned us to stay clear of the UV rays, that they would char you. You would shrivel up like bacon, that's what Mom said. But we had had our way with the sun, and stock piled bottles of sunscreen in our bathroom cabinets. Mom still thought she could slather it on my back, and that I would let her. Usually I told her it had been done, that I had tackled my sunscreen application like there was no tomorrow. After mouthing that off to her I would scrub at the fresh sunscreen with a warm washcloth, wiping the greasiness clean from my ashen skin, then covering myself head to toe in baby oil. I was determined to get a tan by seventh grade, even if it meant tiny bubbles of branded skin, and pink pillowy scars from deadly UV rays I had known full well of. No sir, I didn't believe in SPF 30, 25 or 15 six summers ago. <BR>
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Mom made a killing during garage sale week. My sisters and I took turns as cashiers, positioned tall and lanky behind the Nike shoe box. I took pride in my ability to shuffle through tens and twenties, counting out loud as our costumers looked on, smiling. My sisters took it all in, as I dished out their change, then proudly smirked as I repeated religiously, "Thank you very <I>very</I> much. Have a nice day!" They were my garage sale mentors, and just maybe next summer, they too could deal money the way I did, like a black jack dealer. Mom, however; she was the queen bee of the garage sale. She was buzzing in and out of our house every other hour, with piles of old tennis shoes, or hangers dripping with worn dresses, sometimes even tattered furniture we only used in the basement, as "playtime" paraphernalia. Her arms would sag low as she lugged chairs in, tables in, old stereos in, so I'd turn my head towards my sisters and advice them to go help Mom before she breaks her back. They'd bow their heads obediently. And I'd make change from fifty dollar bills.<BR>
It was the last Sunday of our sale, and Mom was running ragged. She had just about cleared the kitchen table of it's dressings, let alone her very own wardrobe. I can still see almost crystal clear the image of my favorite Barbie, (one that I would probably never bother with again, but knew I'd never be rid of) being handed over to a bubble gum faced brunette who would merely toss her beside a growing collection of <I>garage</I> sale Barbies. I had to be excused from the TV table where I made change, and I told my mother that if she wished to sell my cherished Barbies, I wasn't going to be her check out lady. We thought, my sisters and I, that if there were a perfect time to end the sale, it would be Sunday. So we chirped to Mom that we had made our profit, and there was nothing left to sell. That was when she did <I>it</I>- she dove off the deep end. We watched dumbfounded, as Mom ripped through our house, marching clear into the kitchen, pounding up the stairs. We heard the giant steps making imprints in the carpet as she tore into her room. My sisters and I starred holes into the ceiling above us, as she thundered through her closets, in fear she would break through the floor and plummet downward towards us. Five minutes later, she was back. She hustled down the stairs, gripping one stair at a time, nearly missing the rest. Clutched in her arms, tucked neatly across her chest was the velvet Elvis, her childhood memento, her piece of american culture, her <I>hunk-a-hunk-a burnin' love</I>. We shielded ourselves from this scene, from what was going down, and we stood silent as she spoke.<BR>
"We have too much shit in this house anyway, right? It's time to move on, to make space for "bigger and better things"... I mean, I did sell your Barbie to a brat--"<BR>
She looked my way, smiling sympathetically, her big Mom smile.<BR>
"I mean, it's just <I>Elvis</I>. It's not like it's worth anything. What's the big deal. One last sale, that's all girls." We nodded robotically, we wouldn't stand in her way. No way. <BR>
"Why are you all looking at me like I'm a crazy person. æbigger better things' girls...remember that." Yeah Mom, but he was the king of rock and roll, <I>he</I> was your hero.<BR>
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Six summers ago Dad delighted the family heart with a swimming pool. He made the chief decision to purchase a used above ground job from the guy across town. We all gave out our Daddy hugs, and little girl thank yous after he laid the foundation, poured the gravel, bought the solar cover and invested in mass amounts of chlorine. <BR>
The summers left us panting with droppings of sweet perspiration tickling our temples. The pool was Dad's big gift for the girls, Mom included. While he worked his patriarchal butt off Monday through Friday, my sisters and I bathed in the holy water of our pool. Mom made us iced tea, the only iced tea worth tasting, the kind Mom could make blindfolded and drunk. Her secret ingredient hid deep inside her sacred, gingham-clad recipe book. Our pool, with it's bordering deck, served as a sleeping grounds, reading area, and a stage reserved for the talented few who could belt out Boyz II Men songs off key and out of tune. Our audience, always clapped, and sometimes we'd get a standing ovation. Eventually, we made Mom sit down.<BR>
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Mid August the news reports assured weary mothers that it was ok to go out in the sun now. But just to be safe, layer yourself with SPF 30. Mom began to lecture us, dangling the remainder of summer in our faces, preaching of it's impending end. "Enjoy it while you can girls. Summer is almost <I>o-v-e-r</I>." By mid August we were too busy buying school clothes, and watching daytime soap operas, we had missed out on in June and July. We had had our taste of summer, and we were getting tired of sweet pickles and granny smiths. I was twelve years old, I was ready for seventh grade, I was ready to kiss a boy, and go to Boyz II Men concerts with my girlfriends. I wanted to play soccer and get blouses from the <I>Mall</I>, not K-mart. And why didn't Mom understand that acid washed jeans weren't cool anymore. <BR>
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I had taken the beauty advice in my teeny bopper magazine, that chopping your hair off this season, was the latest trend, everyone was doing it. So Mom chopped my hair. The few times that I found myself outside, my focus squinted, the sun piercing shards of light through my eyelids; I was out looking to see if the grapes were ripe yet. At least I told Mom that. "Just lookin' to see if they've turned, that's all." Actually, there was this new boy who tied vines five rows behind my house, that had a nice smile and a cute laugh. My teeny bopper magazine told me to go for him, make the first move, guys were into aggressive girls in 1995. Unfortunately he only tied grapes for a month, then left my proverbial preteen rhapsody. The fall chills, and yellow suns snuck in behind our backs. And I was convinced summer was over, and I was no longer a baby. I had lived through my last summer as a child, and now I was bursting through the autumn leaves as an adult. After all, Mom had repeated to herself, "bigger better things"... right? She had sold her velvet Elvis because she needed to move on. I had sold my childhood to summer, because I needed to move on.<BR>
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Six summers later I take this all into account, my growing, my sisters growing, my mother's growing, even my father's growing. There really is no such thing as "bigger and better things." At least that's what I have gathered thus far. It's not that we necessarily move on for the sake of time, but that we expand at our own speed. I was twelve years old six summers ago, and I miss that innocence, that ability to look at things and say, 'hey that's just the way things are.' I made a concrete judgment to better myself after that summer, to grow up, to become "adult." But, wasn't I the adult when I made change on garage sale week, my sisters looking up at me in awe, respecting my wishes, and learning from me. And weren't my sisters adults when they took over at the TV table when I decided to go on hiatus once Barbie had been sold. And wasn't Dad an adult when he fished for money to buy us our pool, taking the time to install it himself, just so we could have a little haven to resort to when the sun burned holes through our heads? And Mom, she was an adult that last Sunday when she sold the velvet Elvis, not because she was moving on to "bigger and better things," but because she felt she needed to make her daughter feel better after she had sold her favorite Barbie. That summer the heat scarred my shoulders pink and white for a great portion of my sunburned life, but the growing, the changing, the acceptance of not "bigger and better things," but content and comfortable things scarred my memory, and remains side by side other memories I've collected and grown to love.<BR>
