It's weird that I can't really distinguish different summers by year. I know I went to drama camp at Tufts when I was pretty little, between 1st and 2nd grade, maybe? There were a bunch of summers with Y day camp, at least one with nerd day camp, I don't know what else.

---

Out in the hills, the near-constant hum of miscellaneous insects, rising to an occasional clicky crescendo

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the intense buzz of the cicadas up in the pines.

The weight of heat, the animal pleasure of lying in the backyard right on the hot concrete, sunlight bearing down and sapping away everything but a pleasantly stoned torpor;

Mmmmm, heat....

barns for my Bryer horses (usually they had several hooves broken off).

JZ had a bunch of Bryer horses too.

There was one woman who always asked us to pray for soap opera characters.

Heh. Great detail.

This meant mango eating contests,

When I got older it meant mango daquiris.

me running clubs in a thinly veiled stab at controlling them all,

tactfully doesn't mention b.org

stealing the older cousin's porn and reading it in a mixed group,

Ahhh, stolen porn is the best. I shoplifted The Happy Hooker Goes Wild from The Treasury when I was about 12.

---

If it weren't for my dad's gig, I wouldn't be able to tell summers apart that well myself. 1979 means he was still stationed in Jamaica -- and Warren and Tracy moved away the summer we visited him in the UK (1980), so I'm just throwing people and what we usually did together.

There was undoubtedly a beach trip in there somewhere -- to Turtle Beach or Fisherman's Cove? Couldn't tell you. Either we stayed at the resort in Ocho Rios (and probably climbed the falls) or we were in Port Antonio, playing where the bamboo-fringed stream met the ocean, at the base of rocky cliffs.

---

I shoplifted The Happy Hooker Goes Wild from The Treasury when I was about 12.

My parents had The Happy Hooker -- I found it when we moved, so I must have been 8. Eight is not an age of great patience, so I never made it to the porn. Emmanuelle and Candy gave it up much more quickly, but mostly we stuck to the pictorial stuff (the simple stuff -- Emmanuelle was the movie novelisation, but we couldn't make head nor tail (intended) of the pics, so stuck to the words).

---

Raccoon, yes. Her name was Mandy. We caught her with a device Grandandy taught us to build. I can't remember if we skinny dipped or swam in our clothes. I know my younger cousins- they weren't around when I was 10, they're only pre-adolecent now- skinny dipped in my dad's cousin's above ground pool recently (they live across the street- dirt road- from my grandparents).

You must make it down to Dallas, or I have to make it up to SF so I can invite y'all down there. We even have an extra trailer now for guests. It used to be my uncle A.C.'s and it's just next to Mimi's.

Mimi and Grandandy's [link]

My aunts Becky, DJ, and Patsy at the lake (in ascending order). [link]

My uncles Bobby, Johnny and Don at the lake- with bonus Casey (in weird order Johnny's oldest, then Bobby, then Don- all older than my dad) [link]

---

but mostly we stuck to the pictorial stuff

We dumpster dived at the base behind the Airmen's barracks. Plenty of free porn was to be had back there on a regular basis.

cries and cries and cries.

Well. I'm sure you'll suck less after your new haircut.

---

There was one woman who always asked us to pray for soap opera characters.

Heh. Great detail.

You have never tried so hard not to laugh during church than having to pray that Vicki gets the help she needs and can, in time, learn to forgive her father who gave her life.

---

Also, in the picture of my grandparents' there's a huge huckleberry thatch to the left you can't see.

---

I'm sure you'll suck less after your new haircut.

Now was that nice?

---

Now was that nice?

Was it Not!Nice? Everybody's better after a new haircut.

::shakes personal compass again::

No, that's what it says.

---