Magnolia blossoms filled some of our backyard trees with their delicate pink petals; like soft, flushed skin. Their perfume was a reminder, deeply felt, of the coming season. The flowers were fleeting – they’d wilt with the first cold rain.
In circles around the trees, lime-green shoots pushed up through the litter of unraked leaves and brittle branches left from the fall. Exotic plants, forgotten under the winter snow, also began to emerge. They transformed overnight in the first warm days of May, a photoshopic change in hue from brown to deep green.
We’d escape outside with the new season, and we were filled with the same excited emotions as if we’d found a favorite toy that had been presumed lost forever. It was back.
Out on our front sidewalk, next to a giant elm tree, there was a section of slab tilted up like a small step, where a root had lifted it. Its surface pocked and pitted, it was several inches thick, heavy and immense and immovable. None of us could lift it an inch - and we often tried. Although the tree was eventually lost to Dutch elm disease, its roots left their mark long after it was cut down by city workers.
Summer also marked the beginning of my mother’s annual but unofficial camp program. We all learned at an early age that the agenda for our summers wasn’t really ours. It was all hers.
Vacation Bible school was a frequent offering. It wasn’t Catholic, but since they used the Bible and it kept us busy, it was just as good. Besides, our memories of the school are exclusively about the packages of ice cream they distributed - with their own wooden spoons. Rarely did we remember what was said about the New Testament.
An important and imperial rule was about television. There was strictly limited access. Sometimes, my mother would make good on her threats – she really would cut off the cord to the television. To her, it was “canned laughter” and crap, and not part of the summer program. Now we agree. But we didn’t think so at the time.
The campers liked sleep overs, but they were infrequently allowed. When Meg would be allowed to sleep at a friend’s house, family legend has it that Marge would show up early the next morning to bring her home. She’d arrive at the friend's front door and say, “Meg, time to come home, you have chores to do.” Like we were Amish and worked on the family farm.
My mother registered all of us for swim lessons every year. They were held at Memorial Park. We rode our bikes there, and it was miles away (really). Sessions began in early June, and started with students sitting lined on the edge of the pool, shivering and fearful. The Park District somehow managed to get the water colder than actual tap water – which in Chicago was frigid. Even by August, we all needed to “get used to it” before it was tolerable. And that meant goose bumps and purple lips.
“Get Meg out of the pool, her lips are blue,” my mother would announce to any nearby sibling. Meg would be shivering, arms across her chest, but saying she was fine. Mom knew.
Sports were encouraged. We erected a basketball hoop against the coach house. The backboard was held in place by two-by-fours, which needed to be re-nailed every year to keep the whole structure from swaying each time the ball hit the rim. We’d compete for playing time on our own court with the neighborhood brothers, who taught me my wicked turn-around jumper - one that I can still hit even today.
As summer progressed and the days became hotter, the box fan would spend more days standing in the doorway, thrumming along with the cicadas. We had spent the humid days doing chores, riding bikes, caring for infant siblings, and a thousand other things. As the years progressed, my mother had us working various jobs (to which she had applied for us). In high school and college, she had us enroll in volunteer programs in Central and South America, and our curriculum was advanced to a level none of us thought possible.
One of my mother’s greatest legacies is her boundless and remarkable energy. It was enough for everyone. She created endless projects and endless opportunities to fill our days and our minds. She was the principal, the teacher, the den mother, the head nurse, the groundskeeper, the game warden, the mother nun, the librarian, the counselor and the gym coach. She could do it all – and she did. And we followed. Ok, we resisted much of the time. But we learned to appreciate it - and we learned to love her for it.
Those summer months flashed by so quickly that many are lost to our memories. But some moments are clearly remembered. Like riding our bikes over the crack in the sidewalk that had been lifted by the giant tree, its branches reaching high over our street in a panoramic and protective arch.
The summers my mother created for us helped us build roots like those. And today we push through life’s challenges as if they are the lightest of concrete blocks.
Each of us has been filled with energy and purpose - vividly so. As artists, scientists, teachers, businessmen, or just especially good mothers and fathers, we can look back on our summers and, in part, understand why.
And we’re glad she cut the cord to the TV. Even if we didn't seem so at the time.
