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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, said the report, is that kids learn more in a shorter amount of time, and thus leave 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, countered a well-to-do stay-at-home mom in a sound bite. "These kids," she declared with an authoritative lilt, "need something to do. Summer is for learning."
I couldn't agree more.
One summer of my childhood, I finally learned 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 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 stay outside in our front yard with the neighborhood kids way past my school day bedtime, because summer is when I learned the divine joy 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? Using a giant fan to rid the sky of unsightly 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 class lasted only half a day.
To be sure, a formal 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 certainly is learning involved.
Almost mythic in emotion and spirit, 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 a child's ability to make wise use of time--time that, for once, is their own--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 see that the snow cones sold down on Fourth Street were ice cold and that the lady running the shop didn't skimp on the delicious Number 2 dye strawberry syrup that left our lips red.
It fell to us two spindly kids to make certain that all the little corner stores within our general neighborhood had penny candy in stock. We tested the massive trees along our beat for reliability in supplying sufficient shade against the unrelenting noonday sun. We gave a serious workout to whatever toy Wham-O had out that summer. Our rigorous studies revealed that Slip 'n Slide was misrepresented in its exciting TV commercials, but Mr. Wiggles got a thumbs up.
These things had to be done, and we took the deed upon ourselves. Self motivation--another lesson to be learned 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 wonder, discovery and sheer fun.
As one grows, so do the life experiences. One fateful teenage summer I discovered the rupture of a girl's soft lips pressed in earnest against mine.
After that, my summers would never be the same: the passion, the butterflies, the euphoric giddiness, the cliffhanging expectation, the nagging yearn and the extraordinary sense of something said to be "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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