Another memory of summers at Northport Point, Michigan.

The official start of summer isn’t for a few weeks yet, which means the hours and minutes of daylight are still getting longer.  But a lot of us think of June 1 as the beginning of summer, marked by schools letting out, maybe some work hours adjusting, and thinking of vacation… or at least a trip to someplace nice to relax, like the beach or the mountains.  I know I used to welcome June as the parole from school, and even when I was working full-time there was a sense of relief that we had made it through the winter.

There are still a few roadblocks to happiness: rising inflation thanks to a global pandemic that disrupted the flow, and that matter of a war going on in Ukraine.  But if the figures are correct, people are still doing what it takes to get out, get away, if not for the sake of the summer ritual, than for their own way of finding a way to shake off the past and hope for a better time, at least for a little while.

It’s also the official start of the Atlantic hurricane tropical cyclone season, and we’ve already had an opening number cross Mexico and possibly bring weather to Florida.  But even then, we know what to do.  Or at least we think we do.  And for me, June marks a couple of memories of loss and of renewal.  So it all seems to balance out.

At least I hope so.

“The Dinghy Beach” by Marguerite Cassidy (1919-2005)

At the end of a very trying and tragic week, take a moment to meditate on the small hopes and dreams that get you through the day…and night.  Share the blessings of being with family, a loved one, even a good book and memories of happier times.  Sometimes that’s all we have.

Thirty-five years ago today — April 22, 1987 — on the third anniversary of our first date, Allen and I stood in front of the fireplace of our little house on Bross Street in Longmont and exchanged rings. We promised each other that we’d be together no matter what. It was as close to getting married as we could get in those days. We hugged and kissed and maybe even cried a few happy tears.

Then we went to Perkins for dinner.

We would be together in that way for another twelve years before separating amicably. We stayed close as friends, and he even moved back into our house as my roommate for a year until I moved to Miami. We often talked on the phone for hours on birthdays, anniversaries, or just when we wanted to, and as readers of my plays will attest, he shows up quite often as a character, and even as himself (“A Tree Grows in Longmont,” “Another Park, Another Sunday,” and “Going for a Walk with Sam”). When he slept away on June 8, 2018, the bond was not broken.

I kept our rings in a little wooden jewel box — his is the one on the left — and the piece of paper under it is where I wrote down his phone number on the night we met on April 22, 1984.

I will always call you sweetheart.

February 1 is a bit of an anniversary for me.  On this date in 1989, I slipped on some ice in my driveway in Longmont, Colorado, and broke my ankle in three places.  Later that day I underwent surgery to screw it back together, and the screws are still there.  Coincidentally, somewhere in Oklahoma a litter of puppies was born, one of whom was Sam.  (We’re not exactly sure of the date, but it the vet who took care of him said it was as close as she could get.)  Both events on that day changed my life.

From 1989, Sam with Santa in Longmont.  Sam was about ten months old, so it was his first Christmas.

Yes, I am back in Miami after the weekend at Cheley Colorado Camps, but in a sense, I felt like I was back home again when I was there.  I saw friends I’ve known since I was a camper in 1964, co-workers that I’ve been close to since the 1970’s and beyond, and had time to sit and talk with them as if we had never been apart for all those years.

This time I took a lot of pictures.  Many of them were reminders of places at camp that reminded me of the times at camp (a plate of beans and burgers, the Sunday night cookout staple) or reminders of good times (a prop from a legendary skit), and pictures of friends together, spanning the decades.  I won’t bother you with photos of things that don’t mean much to folks who didn’t go to camp with me.  But there is one picture that captures a memory and a vista that I hope I never lose: the magnificent view of the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park as seen from camp.  It was the first view I remember when I arrived at camp in 1964 and it was the view I had every morning, rain or shine, as I went down the hill to breakfast.  It’s the wallpaper on my home and work computer, updating the same view that I took in 2000.

I’m out in Colorado at my Cheley Camp reunion, so no heavy material today, but I can’t leave you without Doonesbury.  Karmically, it’s about remembrances of times past.

What I once thought was lost has been returned: a precious piece of my childhood and that of my father’s is once again reunited.

When my father and his twin were growing up in the 1930’s in Minneapolis, the twelve “Swallows and Amazons” books were some of his favorite books. I inherited them from him when my grandparents’ house was sold, and I read each one of them cover to cover, but they remained on my bookshelf when I went off to college and got on with my life. When my parents moved to Northport, Michigan, in 1982, the books went with them, and that was the last time I saw them all together. In the meantime, I’d found them in paperback at Fanfare Books in Stratford, Ontario, so I had my own copies, but the originals were still precious to me.

In 1997, my parents sold their house in Northport and moved back to Perrysburg. They were sure that they brought the books back with them, but it turned out that they remained in the old house. We tried to get in touch with the new owner, but either she didn’t hear from us or didn’t care, and I resigned myself to the harsh fact that the books were gone forever.

But like every Swallows and Amazons story, there is a happy ending. A year ago, that house in Northport was sold to friends of our family, and lo and behold, the books were still there, although scattered around to various places in the house. The new owners located eight of them last summer, two more last fall, and then the last two last month. Tonight I found them carefully and lovingly wrapped on my doorstep, and now at last, they are home.

Last summer I re-read the ones I had, and now I will re-read these last two, thinking of my father and his twin as they once read them, and thanking my friend Grace for her diligence and understanding how much of a gift they are to have them back home again.

On August 2, 2001, at 8:30 p.m. — exactly 48 hours after leaving Albuquerque in the Pontiac with Sam, my computer, a duffel bag of clothes, and my philodendron — I pulled into the driveway of Bob and Ken’s house in suburban Miami.  I was there to start a new job teaching theatre at a private school, and it was also a return to where I’d gone to college, graduating in 1974.  On a previous trip in June, I had found an apartment, and two weeks later the moving van with my furniture finally arrived, just as school was starting.

As I may have said in previous posts, it did not go as expected at the school.  When I was hired I was told I would be teaching dramatic literature and history, which was a good fit with my PhD in playwriting and dramatic criticism, leaving the teaching of acting and directing the plays up to someone else.  But when I arrived at the school in August, I was told that plans had changed; they had found someone to teach dramatic lit — she had a masters in English — and I would be teaching acting and directing the plays.  I had never taught acting, and my directing skills were acquired by observation only.  I gulped, settled in to the apartment with Sam, and gave it my best shot.

It didn’t go well, and suffice it to say that when my contract came up for renewal, both the school and I were happy to part ways.  I spent part of the summer of 2002 looking for work and dealing with the loss of Sam, who died July 20th.  But a week later, thanks to Bob, I found an opening at the grants office of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.  I started there in October and… well, you know the rest.

I’ve lived in three different places in Miami: the apartment, the house in Coral Gables, and now the house in Palmetto Bay, where I’ve been since 2008.  I have made many friends, written a lot of plays, found new places to go, and even though Miami is a far different place than it was when I first arrived for my first tour in 1971, it’s still an interesting and new place to be.

Of course I didn’t know what would happen twenty years ago tonight when I arrived in an August thunderstorm.  Sam is gone, the Gateway 2000 computer has gone wherever antique computers go, but the philodendron still thrives and the Pontiac is in the garage.  And I am still finding new friends and still writing.

What’s next?

It’s been three years since Allen left us on June 8, 2018.

But he’s not really gone. One of the duties I have as a writer is to keep him around, so he shows up in my plays: “A Tree Grows in Longmont,” “Allen’s Big Adventure,” “Another Park, Another Sunday,” “Going for a Walk with Sam,” as Arnold in “Last Exit,” and J.R. in “Home-Style Cooking at the Gateway Cafe.” His personality is a big part of the character of Adam in the “All Together” plays, and Pete in “Cooler Near the Lake.” So, hon, wherever you are, you’re still getting into the act, and I will always call you Sweetheart.