Authors note:
My plan was to write a column based on a recent Tribune article on how private water companies are gouging municipal customers to the point where they’re begging Springfield for relief. But my theory was, much like the upstart electric and gas company mailers you’ve received, a consumer had to sign up for the service. But I was wrong! Though the Trib didn’t explain it very well, this water issue is another dynamic entirely.
That meant the column I’d been writing in my head for the past two days was a non-starter and it really sucks for that to happen as you sit down to attack the keyboard. The other possibility I’ve been ruminating on is the end of summer vacation. So, since I don’t want to start a column cold turkey, with my wife shortly returning to her East Aurora classroom, we’ll wax poetic about the semi-official end of the season instead.
God, I loved summer vacation! And thus, this is, and shall eternally remain, my favorite Mike Royko passage:
When I was a kid, the worst of all days was the last day of summer vacation, and we were in the schoolyard playing softball, and the sun was down and it was getting dark. But I didn’t want it to get dark. I didn’t want the game to end. It was too good, too much fun. I wanted it to stay light forever, so we could keep on playing forever, so the game would go on and on.
That’s how I feel now. C’mon, c’mon. Let’s play one more inning. One more time at bat. One more pitch. Just one? Stick around, guys. We can’t break up this team. It’s too much fun. But the sun always went down. And now it’s almost dark again.
It gives me goosebumps every time I read it.
Of course, the late great Pulitzer Prize winning columnist penned those paragraphs as a metaphor for the demise of his beloved Chicago Daily News newspaper, but it still sends me retreating back to those halcyon Evanston September summer days when the reality of the impending school year became impossible to ignore.
“September,” you ask? Yep! Unlike our public school compatriots, St. Nick’s didn’t resume until September 10th-ish, and I can’t tell you how much we loved rubbing two more weeks of summer freedom in those Oakton School students’ faces.
We’d literally fly down the hallway and out of the building the second that final school bell rang ripping off our navy blue clip-on ties, full of giddy anticipation for the plethora of post-solstice possibilities that so eagerly awaited us. And we took advantage of every last one of them.
It started with playing baseball as often as humanly possible at a vacant lot at Ridge and Monroe we affectionately referred to as “the hill.” It wasn’t nearly the best venue, but it was only a block away and it suited the game’s basic purposes. When we got a bit older, we moved the festivities to the Chute Middle School baseball fields.
When we weren’t playing the game, my brother David and I made a point of visiting the Friendly Confines at least four or five times a season. Particularly for a 13-year-old, there was nothing quite like ascending those concrete Wrigley Field steps to emerge to the sacred expanse of perfectly mowed green grass, carefully considered sand, and the trademark ivy dutifully climbing the brick outfield walls.
We’d scope out the doubleheaders, hop on the El, and fervently hope that extra innings or rain would extend our stay. When the first game of a July twin bill against the Padres went into extra innings, and a series of rain delays extended the second, it was the earthly equivalent of what heaven has to be. Over the course of our 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. adventure, we must’ve inhaled at least ten Borden Frosty Malts each.
The strangest part of those late 60s and 70s seasons is the Cubs won every game we attended.
Then there were the glorious Evanston beaches where, despite the eternal 60-degree Lake Michigan temperatures, we’d willingly dive into the skin stinging solution to the point where our teeth would start to chatter.
From there it was long bike rides, mowing lawns for money, and those inevitable backyard barbecues. I’m still not sure how my father managed to turn a run-of-the-mill pot roast into a medium-rare steak-like culinary delight. But the best part of summer vacation was the persistent outdoor existence which greatly mitigated the effects of the always fascinating Ward family dysfunction.
Sports were still a central facet of those early Evanston Township High School summer vacation days, but having discovered Avalon Hill wargames, we’d weather the inclement weather by playing titles like Afrika Korps, Stalingrad, Anzio, Gettysburg, and PanzerBlitz. Failing that, we’d co-opt my friend Tony’s basement to set up a Napoleonic miniatures battle complete with painted Airfix plastic figurines.
By our junior year we were expected to get summer jobs which put quite the damper on those dog days proceedings. All I can say is I still loathe maturity and all the trappings that go along with it. That said, those summer jobs were still a far sight better than sitting in another harshly lit classroom. On the plus side, between a driver’s license and that hard-earned cash, we’d see every summer movie they made no matter how bad some of them turned out to be.
By college, summer vacation had lost most, but not all of its luster. The wargames got bigger and more complicated, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t head out to the then huge open field near the long since demolished Northwestern observatory to play touch football. It was far easier to come up with a quorum for that than it was for baseball. Rainy days meant pickup basketball games at NU’s Patten Gym.
Put as simply as possible, we’d wring every last drop of enjoyment out of those summer vacation days. But then they came to an ignominious end after college, never to return – unless you took up teaching, of course.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my current life because I get to do what I love every day. But I’m not sure if anything can ever compare to the magnificence of those long hot summer vacation days. Were I provided with the possibility of reliving a 70’s summer, I’d leap at the opportunity without a second thought.
So, even though summer vacations are but a figment of my distant past, I can still feel the acute pain currently endured by all the students and teachers who are about to bid this summer a fond farewell and return to the eternally beckoning real world.
C’mon, c’mon. Let’s play one more inning. One more time at bat. One more pitch. Just one? Stick around, guys. We can’t break up this team. It’s too much fun. But the sun always went down. And now it’s almost dark again.
