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STEVEN IVORY: The Sacredness of Summer
*On a recent network evening news broadcast, I watched a segment about summer school. The benefit of summer classes, went the report, is that kids are learning more in a shorter amount of time; they're leaving the school system earlier. And, summer school keeps them out of trouble.
The down side, the report said, is that the amount of homework kids are assigned is stressing them out.
Nonsense, said one mother interviewed. "These kids," she declared with an authoritative lilt, "need something to do. Summer is for learning."
I couldn't agree more.
One summer I learned--finally--how to pop a wheelie on my silver stingray bicycle. I'd been working on it for weeks and one day it just happened.
That's not all I learned during my summers. At Washington Park, on Oklahoma City's predominantly black east side, I learned how to swim like a fish.
Gazing up into the heavens on still, humid nights, I learned how to pick out the Big and Little Dipper. I could be outside way past my school day bedtime, because summer is when I learned the divine felicity of sleeping late and, aside from my chores, not having a damn thing to do or a place to be all day.
School year 'round? Gee, what a concept. First they make it morally unfashionable for parents to lovingly present a child boundaries through discipline, and now they rob them of summer. What's next? Shooing away rainbows after a midday summer shower? These people take the J out of joy.
When I was a youngster, summer school was for kids to make up a flunking grade. And even then it wasn't all summer and lasted only half a day.
To be sure, an education is a gift, to be approached with gratitude and dedication. However, to a child, summers should be scared. There may not be
school books, but during summer there is plenty learning going on.
Almost mythic emotionally and spiritually, summer is when a child learns the vital, dying art of doing, just occasionally, absolutely nothing.
The seemingly endless days of summer can breed personal independence, nurture one's ability to use time wisely and make valiant personal choices.
From wholesale daydreaming can emerge spectacular, breathtaking future reality.
It's not like my own childhood summers didn't bring responsibility. It was up to Don Minnis and I to make sure the snow cones sold down on Fourth Street were ice cold and that the lady running the place didn't skimp on the delicious strawberry flavoring with the Number 2 dye that left our lips red.
It fell to us two spindly kids to make certain that all the little corner stores in our area had penny candy in stock. We tested the massive trees in our neighborhood for reliability in supplying sufficient shade against the unrelenting noonday sun. We gave a serious test workout to whatever toy Wham-O had out that summer.
These things had to be done, and we took the deed upon ourselves. Self motivation--another lesson to be found during the leisure of summer.
To take away a child's summer is akin to a music video sapping a viewer's privilege to concoct their own images to a melody. Likewise, the memories created during summer have to last a lifetime. They need to be remembrances of discovery. And sheer fun.
As one grows, so do the life experiences. One fateful teenage summer I discovered the feeling created by a girl's lips pressed in earnest against mine.
After that, summers would never be the same: the passion, the butterflies, the euphoric giddiness, the cliffhanging expectation, the nagging yearn and this extraordinary feeling of something called love--most of us have been chasing the elusive sensation of that initial thrill ever since.
They don't teach that kind of patience in school.
Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM or MYfeedback@eurweb.com
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